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AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW ' 



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Books by 

GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


The Song of the Cardinal 
F reckles 

What I Have Done with Birds 
At the Foot of the Rainbow 
A Girl of the Limberlost 
Birds of the Bible 
The Harvester 
Laddie 

Moths of the Limberlost 
Music of the Wild 
Michael O’Halloran 







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Mary Malone . . 


slid the heav^ holt into place'"* i^see page iS) 








ATTHEFOOTOF 
THE RAINBOW 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 

Author of 

^^The Song of the Cardinal,^ Etc. 


PUBLISHED BY 

Doubleday, Page & Company 
1919 



Copyright 1907, 1916, by 
Doubleday, Page & Company 

All fights reserved, inch ding that of 
translation into foreign languages, 
including the Scandinavian 


^ o q X 


^^And the bow shall be set in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that 
I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every 
iving creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.*^ 


— Genesis, ix-i6. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

Gene Stratton-Porter. A Little Story of 
Her Life and Work 

PAGE 

3 

I. 

Rat-catchers of the Wabash 

SI 

11. 

Ruben O’Khayam and the Milk Pail 

6 / 

III. 

The Fifty Coons of the Canoper 

83 

IV. 

When the Kingfisher and the Black Bass 



Came Home 

lOI 

V. 

When the Rainbow Set Its Arch in the Sky . 

117 

VI. 

The Heart of Mary Malone 

139 

VII. 

The Apple of Discord 

161 

VIII. 

When the Black Bass Struck 

183 

IX. 

When Jimmy Malone Came to Confession 

205 

X. 

Dannie’s Renunciation 

221 

XI. 

The Pot of Gold . . . 

239 


1 

I 



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s 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Mary Malone . . slid the heavy bolt into 

place” Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

^^She shook with strangled sobs until she scarce could 
stand alone’^ 144 

‘‘The Black Bass leaped clear of the water’^ . . 196 



GENE STRATTON-PORTER 
▲ LITTLE STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 



GENE STRATTON-PORTER 

A LITTLE STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 

F or several years Doubleday, Page & Company 
have been receiving repeated requests for infer- 
mation about the life and books of Gene Stratten- 
Porter. Her fascinating nature work with bird, flower, 
and moth, and the natural wonders of the Limberlost 
Swamp, made famous as the scene of her nature romances, 
all have stirred much curiosity among readers everywhere. 

Mrs. Porter did not possess what has been called ‘‘an 
aptitude for personal publicity.^’ Indeed, up to the pres- 
ent, she has discouraged quite successfully any attempt 
to stress the personal note. It is practically impossible, 
however, to do the kind of work she has done — to make 
genuine contributions to natural science by her wonderful 
field work among birds, insects, and flowers, and then, 
through her romances, to bring several hundred thousands 
of people to love and understand nature in a way they 
never did before — ^without arousing a legitimate interest 
in her own history, her ideals, her methods of work, and 
all that underlies the structure of her unusual achieve- 
ment. 

Her publishers have felt the pressure of this growing 
interest and it was at their request that she furnished the 
data for a biographical sketch that was to be written of 


4 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


her. But when this actually came to hand, the present 
compiler found that the author had told a story so much 
more interesting than anything he could write of her, that 
it became merely a question of how little need be added. 

The following pages are therefore adapted from what 
might be styled the personal record of Gene Stratton- 
Porter. This will account for the very intimate picture 
of family life in the Middle West for some years following 
the Civil War. 

Mark Stratton, the father of Gene Stratton-Porter, 
described his wife, at the time of their marriage, as a 
“ninety-pound bit of pink porcelain, pink as a wild rose, 
plump as a partridge, having a big rope of bright brown 
hair, never ill a day in her life, and bearing the loveliest 
name ever given a woman — Mary.” He further added 
that “God fashioned her heart to be gracious, her body 
to be the mother of children, and as her especial gift 
Grace, he put Flower Magic into her fingers.” 

Mary Stratton was the mother of twelve lusty babies, 
all of whom she reared past eight years of age, losing tw* 
a little over that, through an attack of scarlet fever with 
whooping cough; too ugly a combination for even such a 
wonderful mother as she. With this brood on her hands 
she found time to keep an immaculate house, to set a table 
renowned in her part of the state, to entertain with un- 
failing hospitality all who came to her door, to beautify 
her home with such means as she could command, to 
embroider and fashion clothing by hand for her children; 
but her great gift was conceded by all to be the making of 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 5 

things to grow. At that she was wonderful. She started 
dainty little vines and climbing plants from tiny seeds she 
found in rice and coffee. Rooted things she soaked in 
water, rolled in fine sand, planted according to habit, and 
they almost never failed to justify her expectations. She 
even grew trees and shrubs from slips and cuttings no one 
else would have thought of trying to cultivate, her last 
resort being to cut a slip diagonally, insert the lower end 
in a small potato, and plant as if rooted. And it nearly 
always grew! 

There is a ^haft of white stone standing at her head 
in a cemetery that belonged to her on a corner of her hus- 
band’s land; but to Mrs. Porter’s mind her mother’s real 
monument is a cedar of Lebanon which she set in the 
manner described above. The cedar tops the brow of a 
little hill crossing the grounds. She carried two slips 
from Ohio, where they were given to her by a man who 
had brought the trees as tiny things from the Holy Land. 
She planted both in this way, one in her dooryard and 
one in her cemetery The tree on the hill stands thirty 
feet tall now, topping all others, and has a trunk two feet 
in circumference. 

Mrs. Porter’s mother was of Dutch extraction, and 
like all Dutch women she worked her special magic with 
bulbs, which she favoured above other flowers. Tulips, 
da’ffodils, star flowers, lilies, dahlias, little bright hyacinths, 
that she called ‘^blue bells,” she dearly loved. From these 
she distilled exquisite perfume by putting clusters, 
time of perfect bloom, in bowls lined with freshly made, 
unsalted butter, covering them closely, and cutting the 


6 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


few drops of extract thus obtained with alcohol. “She 
could do more different things/* says the author, “and 
finish them all in a greater degree of perfection than any 
other woman I have ever known. If I were limited to one 
adjective in describing her, ‘capable’ would be the word.” 

The author’s father was descended from a long line 
of ancestors of British blood. He was named for, and 
traced his origin to, that first Mark Stratton who lived 
in New York, married the famous beauty, Anne Hutch- 
inson, and settled on Stratton Island, afterward corrupted 
to Staten, according to family tradition. From that 
point back for generations across the sea he followed his 
line to the family of Strattons of which the Earl of North- 
brooke is the present head. To his British traditions 
and the customs of his family, Mark Stratton clung with 
rigid tenacity, never swerving from his course a particle 
under the influence of environment or association. All 
his ideas were clear-cut; no man could influence him 
against his better judgment. He believed in God, in 
courtesy, in honour, and cleanliness, in beauty, and in 
education. He used to say that he would rather see a 
child of his the author of a book of which he could be 
proud, than on the throne of England, which was the 
strongest way he knew to express himself. His very first 
earnings he spent for a book; when other men rested, he 
read; all his life he was a student of extraordinarily te- 
nacious memory. He especially loved history: Rollands, 
Wilson’s Outlines, Hume, Macauley, Gibbon, Prescott, 
and Bancroft, he could quote from all of them paragraphs 
at a time contrasting the views of different writers on a 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


7 


given event, and remembering dates with unfailing accu- 
racy. could repeat the entire Bible/^ says Mrs. Strat- 

toii-Porter, ‘^giving chapters and verses, save the books of 
Generations; these he said ^were a waste of gray matter 
to learn. ^ I never knew him to fail in telling where any 
verse quoted to him was to be found in the Bible.’^ And 
she adds: was almost afraid to make these statements, 

although there are many living who can corroborate them, 
until John Muir published the story of his boyhood day», 
and in it I found the history of such rearing as was my 
father’s, told of as the customary thing among the children 
of Muir’s time; and I have referred many inquirers as to 
whether this feat were possible, to the Muir book.” 

All his life, with no thought of fatigue or of incon- 
venience to himself, Mark Stratton travelled miles un- 
counted to share what he had learned with those less 
fortunately situated, by delivering sermons, lectures, 
talks on civic improvement and politics. To him the 
love of God could be shown so genuinely in no other way 
as in the love of his fellowmen. He worshipped beauty: 
beautiful faces, souls, hearts, beautiful landscapes, trees, 
animals, flowers. He loved colour: rich, bright colour, 
and every variation down to the faintest shadings. He 
was especially fond of red, and the author carefully 
keeps a cardinal silk handkerchief that he was carrying 
when stricken with apoplexy at the age of seventy- 
eight. ‘‘It was so like him,” she comments, “to have that 
scrap of vivid colour in his pocket. He never was too busy 
to fertilize a flower bed or to dig holes for the setting of a 
tr^^ or bush. A word constantly on his lips was ‘tidyo^ 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


It applied equally to a woman, a house, a field, or a barn 
lot. He had a streak of genius in his make-up: the genius 
of large appreciation. Over inspired Biblical passages, 
over great books, over sunlit landscapes, over a white 
violet abloom in deep shade, over a heroic deed of man, I 
have seen his brow light up, his eyes shine.’’ 

Mrs. Porter tells us that her father was constantly 
reading aloud to his children and to visitors descriptions 
of the great deeds of men. Two ‘‘hair-raisers” she espe- 
cially remembers with increased heart-beats to this day 
were the story of John Maynard, who piloted a burning 
boat to safety while he slowly roasted at the wheel. She 
says the old thrill comes back when she recalls the inflec- 
tion of her father’s voice as he would cry in imitation of 
the captain: “John Maynard!” and then give the reply 
until it sank to a mere gasp: ‘^Aye, aye, sir!” His other 
favourite was the story of Clemanthe, and her lover’s 
immortal answer to her question : “Shall we meet again ? ” 

To this mother at forty-six, and this father at fifty, 
each at intellectual top-notch, every faculty having been 
stirred for years by the dire stress of Civil War, and the 
period immediately following, the author was born. From 
childhood she recalls “thinking things which she felt 
should be saved,” and frequently tugging at her mother’s 
skirts and begging her to “set down” what the child con- 
sidered stories and poems. Most of these were some big 
fact in nature that thrilled her, usually expressed in Bib- 
lical terms; for the Bible was read twice a day before the 
family and helpers, and an average of three services were 
.attended on Sunday. 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


9 

Mrs. Porter says that her first all-alone effort was 
printed in wabbly letters on the fly-leaf of an old gram- 
mar. It was entitled: ^‘Ode to the Moon.” ^^Not,” she 
comments, ‘‘that I had an idea what an ‘ode’ was, other 
than that I had heard it discussed in the family together 
with different forms of poetic expression. The spelling 
must have been by proxy: but I did know the words I 
used, what they meant, and the idea I was trying to con- 
vey. 

“No other farm was ever quite so lovely as the one 
on which I was born after this father and mother had 
spent twenty-five years beautifying it,” says the author. 
It was called “Hopewell” after the home of some of her 
father’s British ancestors. The natural location was 
perfect, the land rolling and hilly, with several flowing 
springs and little streams crossing it in three directions,, 
while plenty of forest still remained. The days of pioneer 
struggles were past. The roads were smooth and level 
as floors, the house and barn commodious; the family rode 
abroad in a double carriage trimmed in patent leather, 
drawm by a matched team of gray horses, and sometimes 
the father “speeded a little” for the delight of the children. 
“We had comfortable clothing,” says Mrs. Porter, “and 
were getting our joy from life without that pinch of anxiety 
which must have existed in the beginning, although I know 
that father and mother always held steady, and took a 
large measure of joy from life in passing.” 

Her mother’s health, which always had been perfect, 
broke about the time of the author’s first remembrance 
to typhoid fever contracted after nursing three of her 


lO 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


children through it. She lived for several years, but with 
continual suffering, amounting at times to positive torture. 

So it happened, that led by impulse and aided by an 
escape from the training given her sisters, instead of 
^^sitting on a cushion and sewing a fine seam^^ — the threads 
of the fabric had to be counted and just so many allowed 
to each stitch ! — this youngest child of a numerous house- 
hold spent her waking hours with the wild. She followed 
her father and the boys afield, and when tired out slept 
on their coats in fence corners, often awaking with shy 
creatures peering into her face. She wandered where she 
pleased, amusing herself with birds, flowers, insects, and 
plays she invented. ^'By the day,"’ writes the author^ 
trotted from one object which attracted me to another^ 
singing a little song of made-up phrases about everything 
I saw while I waded catching fish, chasing butterflies over 
clover fields, or following a bird with a hair in its beak; 
much of the time I carried the inevitable baby for a 
woman-child, frequently improvised from an ear of corn 
in the silk, wrapped in catalpa leaf blankets.” 

She had a errner of the garden under a big Bartlett 
pear tree for her very own, and each spring she began 
by planting radishes and lettuce when the gardening 
was done; and before these had time to sprout she set 
the same beds full of spring flowers, and so followed out 
the season. She made special pets of the birds, locat- 
ing nest after nest, and immediately projecting herself into 
the daily life of the occupants. ^^No one,” she says, ‘‘ever 
taught me more than that the birds were useful, a gift of 
God for our protection from insect pests on fruit and crops; 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


II 


and a gift of Grace in their beauty and music, things to be 
rigidly protected. From this cue I evolved the idea myself 
that I must be extremely careful, for had not my father 
tied a Terchief over my mouth when he lifted me for a 
peep into the nest of the humming-bird, and did he not 
walk softly and whisper when he approached the spot.^ 
So I stepped lightly, made no noise, and watched until 1 
knew what a mother bird fed her young before I began 
dropping bugs, worms, crumbs, and fruit into little red 
mouths that opened at my tap on the nest quite as readily 
as at the touch of the feet of the mother bird.^^ 

In the nature of this child of the out-of-doors there ran 
a fibre of care for wild things. It was instinct with her 
to go slowly, to touch lightly, to deal lovingly with every 
living thing: fiower, moth, bird, or animal. She nevej 
gathered great handfuls of frail wild flowers, carried them 
an hour and threw them away. If she picked any, she 
took only a few, mostly to lay on her mother’s pillow — for 
she had a habit of drawing comfort from a cinnamon pink 
or a trillium laid where its delicate fragrance reached her 
with every breath. am quite sure,” Mrs. Portei 
writes, ^‘that I never in my life, in picking flowers, drag- 
ged up the plant by the roots, as I frequently saw othei 
people do. I was taught from infancy to cut a bloom I 
wanted. My regular habit was to lift one plant of each 
kind, especially if it were a species new to me, and set it 
in my wild-flower garden.” 

To the birds and flowers the child added moths and 
butterflies, because she saw them so frequently, the bril- 
liance of colour in yard and garden attracting more than 


12 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


could be found elsewhere. So she grew with the wild, 
loving, studying, giving all her time. fed butterflies 
sweetened water and rose leaves inside the screen of a 
cellar window,’’ Mrs. Porter tells us; ^‘doctored all the 
sick and wounded birds and animals the men brought me 
from afield; made pets of the baby squirrels and rabbity 
they carried in for my amusement; collected wild flowers; 
and as I grew older, gathered arrow points and goose quills 
for sale in Fort Wayne. So I had the first money I ever 
earned.” 

Her father and mother had strong artistic tendencies, 
although they would have scolFed at the idea themselves, 
yet the manner in which they laid ofF their fields, the home 
they built, the growing things they preserved, the way 
they planted, the life they led, all go to prove exactly 
chat thing. Their bush- and vine-covered fences crept 
around the acres they owned in a strip of gaudy colour; 
their orchard lay in a valley, a square of apple trees in 
the centre widely bordered by peach, so that it appeared 
at bloom time like a great pink-bordered white blanket on 
the face of earth. Swale they might have drained, and 
would not, made sheets of blue flag, marigold and butter^ 
cups. From the home you could not look in any direction 
vvithout seeing a picture of beauty. 

^‘Last spring,” the author writes in a recent letter, ‘T 
w^ent back with my mind fully made up to buy that land 
at any reasonable price, restore it to the exact condition 
in which I knew it as a child, and finish my life there. I 
found that the house had been burned, killing all the big 
trees set by my mother’s hands immediately surrounding 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


13 

It. The hills were shorn and ploughed down, filling and 
obliterating the creeks and springs. Most of the forest 
had been cut, and stood in corn. My old catalpa in the 
fence corner beside the road and the Bartlett pear under 
which I had my wild-flower garden were all that was left 
of the dooryard, while a few gnarled apple trees remained 
of the orchard, which had been reset in another place- 
The garden had been moved, also the lanes; the one creek 
remaining out of three crossed the metdow at the foot of 
the orchard. It flowed a sickly current over a dredged 
bed between bare, straight banks. The whole place seemed 
worse than a dilapidated graveyard to me. All my love 
and ten times the money I had at command never could 
have put back the face of nature as I knew it on that 
land.’’ 

As a child the author had very few books, only three 
of her own outside of school books. ‘‘The markets did 
not afford the miracles common with the children of to- 
day,” she adds. “Books are now so numerous, so cheap, 
and so bewildering in colour and make-up, that I some-" 
times think our children are losing their perspective and 
caring for none of them as I loved my few plain little ones 
filled with short story and poem, almost no illustration. 
I had a treasure house in the school books of my elders, 
especially the McGuffey series of Readers from One to Six. 
For pictures I was driven to the Bible, dictionary, his- 
torical works read by my father, agricultural papers, and 
medical books about cattle and sheep. 

“Near the time of my mother’s passing we moved from 
Hopewell to the city of Wabash in order that she might 


H 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


have constant medical attention, and the younger chil- 
dren better opportunities for schooling. Here we had 
magazines and more books in which I was interested. The 
one volume in which my heart was enwrapt was a col- 
lection of masterpieces of fiction belonging to my eldest 
sister. It contained ‘Paul and Virginia,’ ‘Undine,’ ‘Pic- 
ciola,’ ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and 
several others I soon learned by heart, and the reading and 
rereading of those exquisitely expressed and conceived 
stories may have done much in forming high conceptions 
of what really constitutes literature and in furthering the 
lofty ideals instilled by my parents. One of these stories 
formed the basis of my first publicly recognized literary 
effort.” 

Reared by people who constantly pointed out every 
natural beauty, using it wherever possible to drive home 
a precept, the child lived out-of-doors with the wild almost 
entirely. If she reported promptly three times a day 
when the bell rang at meal time, with enough clothing to 
constitute a decent covering, nothing more was asked 
until the Sabbath. To be taken from such freedom, her 
feet shod, her body restricted by as much clothing as ever 
had been worn on Sunday, shut up in a schoolroom, and 
set to droning over books, most of which she detested, 
was the worst punishment ever inflicted upon her she de- 
clares. She hated mathematics in any form and spent 
all her time on natural science, language, and literature. 
“Friday afternoon,” writes Mrs. Porter, “was always 
taken up with an exercise called ‘rhetoricals,’ a misnomer 
as a rulet but let that pass Each week pupils of one o/ 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


15 

the four years furnished entertainment for the assembled 
high school and faculty. Our subjects were always as- 
signed, and we cordially disliked them. This particular 
day I was to have a paper on ^Mathematical Law.^ 1 

put ofF the work until my paper had been called for 
several times, and so came to Thursday night with excuses 
and not a line. I was told to bring my work the next 
morning without fail. I went home in hot anger. Why 
in all this beautiful world, would they not allow me to do 
something I could do, and let any one of four members 
of my class who revelled in mathematics do my subject? 
That evening I was distracted. H canT do a paper on 
mathematics, and I won’t! ^ I said stoutly; ‘but Fll do 
such a paper on a subject I can write about as will open 
their foolish eyes and make them see how wrong they are.’ 

“Before me on the table lay the book I loved, the most 
wonderful story in which was ‘Picciola’ by Saintine. In- 
stantly I began to write. Breathlessly I wrote for hours. 
I exceeded our limit ten times over. The poor Italian 
Count, the victim of political offences, shut by Napoleon 
from the wonderful grounds, mansion, and life that were 
his, restricted to the bare prison walls of Fenestrella, de- 
prived of books and writing material, his one interest in 
life became a sprout of green, sprung, no doubt, from a 
seed dropped by a passing bird, between the stone flagging 
of the prison yard before his window. With him I had 
watched over it through all the years since I first had ac- 
cess to the book; with him I had prayed for it. I had 
broken into a cold sweat of fear when the jailer first 
menaced it; I had hated the wind that bent it roughly, 


i6 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


and implored the sun. I had sung a paean of joy at its 
budding, and worshipped in awe before its thirty per- 
fect blossoms. The Count had named it 'Picciola’ — 
the little one — to me also it was a personal possession. 
That night we lived the life of our Mittle one’ over again, 
the Count and I, and never were our anxieties and our 
joys more poignant. 

^^Next morning,” says Mrs. Porter, dared my crowd 
to see how long they could remain on the grounds, and yet 
reach the assembly room before the last toll of the bell. 
This scheme Worked. Coming in so late the principal 
opened exercises without remembering my paper. Again, 
at noon, I was as late as I dared be, and I escaped until 
near the close of the exercises, through which I sat in cold 
fear. When my name was reached at last the principal 
looked at me inquiringly and then announced my inspiring 
mathematical subject. I arose, walked to the front, and 
made my best bow. Then I said: ‘I waited until yester- 
day because I knew absolutely nothing about my subject^ 
— the audience laughed — ‘and I could find nothing either 
here or in the library at home, so last night I reviewed 
Saintine’s masterpiece, “Picciola.”’ 

“Then instantly I began to read. I was almost paralyzed 
at my audacity, and with each word I expected to hear a 
terse little interruption. Imagine my amazement when I 
heard at the end of the first page: ‘Wait a minute!' Of 
course I waited, and the principal left the room. A 
nioment later she reappeared accompanied by the super- 
intendent of the city schools. ‘Begin again,’ she said, 
^Take your time.’ 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


17 

was too amazed to speak. Then thought came in a 
iUsh. My paper was good. It was as good as I had be- 
lieved it. ic was better than I had known. I did go on! 
We took that assembly room and the corps of teachers into 
our confidence, the Count and I, and told them all that 
was in our hearts about a little flower that sprang between 
the paving stones of a prison yard. The Count and I were 
free spirits. From the book I had learned that. He got 
into political trouble through it, and I had got into mathe- 
matical trouble, and we told our trjubles. One instant 
the room was in laughter, the nex^i the boys bowed their 
heads, and the girls who had forgotten their handkerchiefs 
cried in their aprons. For almost sixteen big foolscap 
pages I held them, and I was eager to go on and tell them 
more about it when I reached the last line. Never again 
was a subject forced upon me.^^ 

After this incident of her schooldays, what had been in- 
clination before was aroused to determination and the child 
neglected her lessons to write. A volume of crude verse 
fashioned after the metre of Meredith’s ^^Lucile,” a ro- 
mantic book in rhyme, and two novels were the fruits of 
this youthful ardour. Through the sickness and death of 
a sister, the author missed the last three months of school, 
but, she remarks, ^^unlike my schoolmates, I studied harder 
after leaving school than ever before and in a manner that 
did me real good. The most that can be said of what edu- 
cation I have is that it is the very best kind in the world 
for me; the only possible kind that would not ruin a person 
of my inclinations. The others of my family had been to 
college; I always have been too thankful for words that 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


i8 

circumstances intervened which saved my brain from being 
run through a groove in company with dozens of others of 
widely different tastes and mentality. What small meas- 
ure of success I have had has come through preserving my 
individual point of view, method of expression, and follow- 
ing in after life the Spartan regulations of my girlhood 
home. Whatever I have been able to do, has been done 
through the line of education my father saw fit to give me, 
and through his and my mother’s methods of rearing me. 

^^My mother went out too soon to know, and my father 
never saw one of the books; but he knew I was boiling and 
bubbling like a yeast jar in July over some literary work, 
and if I timidly slipped to him with a composition, or a 
faulty poem, he saw good in it, and made suggestions for 
its betterment. When I wanted to express something in 
colour, he went to an artist, sketched a design for an easel, 
personally superintended the carpenter who built it, and 
provided tuition. On that same easel I painted the water 
colours for ^ Moths of the Limberlost,’ and one of the most 
poignant regrets of my life is that he was not there to see 
them, and to know that the easel which he built through 
his faith in me was finally used in illustrating a book. 

^‘If I thought it was music through which I could express 
myself, he paid for lessons and detected hidden ability that 
should be developed. Through the days of struggle he 
stood fast; firm in his belief in me. He was half the battle. 
It was he who demanded a physical standard that de- 
veloped strength to endure the rigours of scientific field and 
darkroom work, and the building of ten books in ten years, 
five of which were on nature subjects, having my own illus- 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


19 


trations, and five novels, literally teeming with natural 
history, true to nature. It was he who demanded of me 
from birth the finishing of any task I attempted and who 
taught me to cultivate patience to watch and wait, even 
years, if necessary, to find and secure material I wanted. 
It was he who daily lived before me the life of exactly such 
a man as I portrayed in ‘The Harvester,’ and who con- 
stantly used every atom of brain and body power to help 
and to encourage aL men to do the same.” 

Marriage, a home of her own, and a daughter for a time 
filled the author’s hands, but never her whole heart and 
brain. The book fever lay dormant a while, and then it be- 
came a compelling influence. It dominated the life she 
lived, the cabin she designed for their home, and the books 
she read. When her daughter was old enough to go to 
school, Mrs. Porter’s time came. Speaking of this period, 
she says: “I could not afford a maid, but I was very strong, 
vital to the marrow, and I knew how to manage life to 
make it meet my needs, thanks to even the small amount I 
had seen of my mother. I kept a cabin of fourteen rooms, 
and kept it immaculate. I made most of my daughter’s 
clothes, I kept a conservatory in which there bloomed from 
three to six hundred bulbs every winter, tended a house of 
canaries and linnets, and cooked and washed dishes besides 
three times a day. In my spare time (mark the word, there 
was time to spare else the books never would have been 
written and the pictures made) I mastered photography to 
such a degree that the manufacturers of one of our finest 
brands of print paper once sent the manager of their 
factory to me to learn how I handled it. He frankly said 


20 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


that they could obtain no such results with it as I did. He 
wanted to see my darkroom, examine my paraphernalia, 
and have me tell him exactly how I worked. As I was 
using the family bathroom for a darkroom and washing 
negatives and prints on turkey platters in the kitchen, I 
was rather put to it when it came to giving an exhibition. 
It was scarcely my fault if men could not handle the paper 
they manufactured so that it produced the results that I 
obtained, so I said I thought the difference might lie in the 
chemical properties of the water, and sent this man on his 
way satisfied. Possibly it did. But I have a shrewd sus- 
picion it lay in high-grade plates, a careful exposure, ju-^ 
dicious development, with self-compounded chemicals 
straight from the factory, and C. P, I think plates swabbed 
with wet cotton before development, intensified if of short 
exposure, and thoroughly swabbed again before dryings 
had much to do with it; and paper handled in the same 
painstaking manner had more. I have hundreds of nega* 
tives in my closet made twelve years ago, in perfect con- 
dition for printing from to-day, and I never have lost a 
plate through fog from imperfect development and hasty 
washing; so my little mother’s rule of ^whatsoever thy 
hands find to do, do it with thy might,’ held good in 
photography.” 

Thus had Mrs. Porter made time to study and to write, 
and editors began to accept what she sent them with little 
if any changes. She began by sending photographic and 
natural history hints to Recreation^ and with the first in- 
stallment was asked to take charge of the department and 
furnish material each month for which she was to be paid 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 21 


at current prices in high-grade photographic material. We 
can form some idea of the work she did under this arrange- 
ment from the fact that she had over one thousand dollars’ 
worth of equipment at the end of the first year. The 
second year she increased this by five hundred, and then 
accepted a place on the natural history staff of Outing, 
working closely with Mr. Casper Whitney. After a year 
of this helpful experience Mrs. Porter began to turn her 
attention to what she calls ‘‘nature studies sugar coated 
with fiction.” Mixing some childhood fact with a large 
degree of grown-up fiction, she wrote a little story entitled 
‘‘Laddie, the Princess, and the Pie.” 

‘‘I was abnormally sensitive,” says the author, about 
trying to accomplish any given thing and failing. I had 
been taught in my home that it was black disgrace to 
undertake anything and fail. My husband owned a drug 
and book store that carried magazines, and it was not pos- 
sible to conduct departments in any of them and not have 
It known; but only a few people in our locality read these 
publications, none of them were interested in nature pho- 
tography, or natural science, so what I was trying to do was 
not realized even by my own family. 

^‘With them I was much more timid than with the 
neighbours. Least of all did I want to fail before my man 
person and my daughter and our respective families; so I 
worked in secret, sent in my material, and kept as quiet 
about it as possible. On Outing I had graduated from the 
camera department to an illustrated article each month, 
and as this kept up the year round, and few illustrations 
could be made in winter, it meant that I must secure 


22 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


enough photographs of wild life in summer to last during 
the part of the year when few were to be had. 

Every fair day I spent afield, and my little black horse 
and load of cameras, ropes, and ladders became a familiar 
sight to the country folk of the Limberlost, in Rainbow 
Bottom, the Canoper, on the banks of the Wabash, in 
woods and thickets and beside the roads; but few people 
understood what I was trying to do, none of them what it 
would mean were I to succeed. Being so afraid of failure and 
the inevitable ridicule in a community where I was already 
severly criticised on account of my ideas of housekeeping, 
dress, and social customs, I purposely kept everything I did 
as quiet as possible. It had to be known that I was in- 
terested in everything afield, and making pictures; also 
that I was writing field sketches for nature publications, 
but little was thought of it, save as one more ^peculiarity" 
in me. So when my little story was finished I went to our 
store and looked over the magazines. I chose one to 
which we did not subscribe, having an attractive cover, 
good type, and paper, and on the back of an old envelope, 
behind the counter, I scribbled: Perriton Maxwell, ii6 
Nassau Street, New York, and sent my story on its way. 

^^Then I took a bold step, the first in my self-emancipa- 
tion. Money was beginning to come in, and I had some in 
my purse of my very own that I had earned when no one 
even knew I was working. I argued that if I kept my 
family so comfortable that they missed nothing from their 
u -iiai routine, it was my right to do what I could toward 
rurtherinig my personal ambitions in what time I coula 
save from my housework. And until I could earn enough 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


23 


to hire capable people to take my place, I held rigidly to 
that rule. I who waded morass, fought quicksands, crept, 
worked from ladders high in air, and crossed water on im- 
provised rafts without a tremor, slipped with many mis- 
givings into the postoffice and rented a box for myself, so 
that if I met with failure my husband and the men in the 
bank need not know what I had attempted. That was 
early May; all summer I waited. I had heard that it re- 
quired a long time for an editor to read and to pass on 
matter sent him; but my waiting did seem out of all reason. 
I was too busy keeping my cabin and doing field work to 
repine; but I decided in my own mind that Mr. Maxwell 
was a ^mean old thing’ to throw away my story and keep 
the return postage. Besides, I was deeply chagrined, for I 
had thought quite well of my effort myself, and this 
seemed to prove that I did not know even the first 
principles of what would be considered an interesting 
story. 

‘^Then one day in September I went into our store on an 
enand and the manager said to me: H read your story in 
the Metropolitan last night. It was great! Did you ever 
write any fiction before?’ 

‘^My head whirled, but I had learned to keep my own 
counsels, so I said as lightly as I could, while my heart beat 
until I feared he could hear it: ^No. Just a simple little 
thing 1 Have you any spare copies ? My sister might want 
one.’ 

‘‘He supplied me, so I hurried home, and shutting 
myself in the library, I sat down to look my first attempt 
at fiction in the face. I quite agreed with the manager 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


24 

that it was ‘great.’ Then I wrote Mr. Maxwell a note 
telling him that I had seen my story in his magazine, and 
saying that I was glad he liked it enough to use it. I had 
not known a letter could reach New York and bring a reply 
so quickly as his answer came. It was a letter that warmed 
the deep of my heart. Mr. Maxwell wrote that he liked 
my story very much, but the office boy had lost or de- 
stroyed my address with the wrappings, so after waiting 
a reasonable length of time to hear from me, he had illus- 
trated it the best he could, and printed it. He wrote 
that so many people had spoken to him of a new, fresh note 
in it, that he wished me to consider doing him another in 
a similar vein for a Christmas leader and he enclosed my 
very first check for fiction. 

“So I wrote: ‘How Laddie and the Princess Spelled 
Down at the Christmas Bee.’ Mr. Maxwell was pleased 
to accept that also, with what I considered high praise, 
and to ask me to furnish the illustrations. He specified 
that he wanted a frontispiece, head and tail pieces, and 
six or seven other illustrations. Counting out the time 
for his letter to reach me, and the material to return, I 
was left with just one day in which to secure the pictures. 
They had to be of people costumed in the time of the early 
seventies and I was short of print paper and chemicals. 
First, I telephoned to Fort Wayne for the material I 
wanted to be sent without fail on the afternoon train. 
Then I drove to the homes of the people I wished to use 
for subjects and made appointments for sittings, and 
ransacked the cabin for costumes. The letter came on 
the eight a. m. train. At ten o’clock I was photographing 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 25 

Colonel Lupton beside my dining-room fireplace for the 
father in the story. At eleven I was dressing and posing 
Miss Lizzie Huart for the Princess. At twelve I was pictur- 
ing in one of my bedrooms a child who served finely for Lit- 
tle Sister, and an hour later the same child in a cemetery 
three miles in the country where I used mounted butter- 
flies from my cases, and potted plants carried from my con- 
servatory, for a graveyard scene. The time was early 
November, but God granted sunshine that day, and short 
focus blurred the background. At four o’clock I was at 
the schoolhouse, and in the best-lighted room with five or 
six models, I was working on the spelling bee scenes. By 
six I was in the darkroom developing and drying these 
plates, every one of which was good enough to use. I 
did my best work with printing-out paper, but I was 
compelled to use a developing paper in this extremity, 
because it could be worked with much more speed, dried 
j. little between blotters, and mounted. At three o’clock 
in the morning I was typing the quotations for the pic- 
tures, at four the parcel stood in the hall for the six o’clock 
train, and I realized that I wanted a drink, food, and sleep, 
for I had not stopped a second for anything from the time 
of reading Mr. Maxwell’s letter until his order was ready 
to mail. For the following ten years I was equally prompt 
in doing all work I undertook, whether pictures or manu- 
script, without a thought of consideration for self; and I 
disappointed the confident expectations of my nearest and 
dearest by remaining sane, normal, and almost without 
exception the healthiest woman they knew.” 

This story and its pictures were much praised, and in tha 


26 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


following year the author was asked for several stories, 
and even used bird pictures and natural history sketches, 
quite an innovation for a magazine at that time. With 
this encouragement she wrote and illustrated a short 
story of about ten thousand words, and sent it to the 
Century, Richard Watson Gilder advised Mrs. Porter 
to enlarge it to book size, which she did. This book is 
‘‘The Cardinal.^’ Following Mr. Gilder’s advice, she 
recast the tale and, starting with the mangled body of 
a cardinal some marksman had left in the road she was 
travelling, in a fervour of love for the birds and indig- 
nation at the hunter, she told the Cardinal’s life history 
in these pages. 

The story was promptly accepted and the book was 
published with very beautiful half-tones, and cardinal 
buckram cover. Incidentally, neither the author’s hus- 
band nor daughter had the slightest idea she was attempt- 
ing to write a book until work had progressed to that stage 
where she could not make a legal contract without her 
husband’s signature. During the ten years of its life 
this book has gone through eight different editions, vary- 
ing in form and make-up from the birds in exquisite colour, 
as colour work advanced and became feasible, to a bind- 
ing of beautiful red morocco, a number of editions of differ- 
ing design intervening. One was tried in gray binding, 
the colour of the female cardinal, with the red male used 
as an inset. Another was woods green with the red male, 
and another red with a wild rose design stamped in. There 
is a British edition published by Hodder and Stoughton. 
All of these had the author’s own illustrations which au- 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


27 

thorities agree are the most complete studies of the home 
life and relations of a pair of birds ever published. 

The story of these illustrations in ^^The CardinaF’ and 
how the author got them will be a revelation to most 
readers. Mrs. Porter set out to make this the most com- 
plete set of bird illustrations ever secured, in an effort to 
awaken people to the wonder and beauty and value of the 
birds. She had worked around half a dozen nests for two 
years and had carried a lemon tree from her conservatory 
to the location of one nest, buried the tub, and introduced 
the branches among those the birds used in approaching 
their home that she might secure proper illustrations for 
the opening chapter, wliich was placed in the South. 
When the complete bird series was finished, the difficult 
work over, and there remained only a few characteristic 
Wabash River studies of flowers, vines, and bushes for 
chapter tail pieces to be secured, the author ‘^met her 
Jonah,’’ and her escape was little short of a miracle. 

After a particularly strenuous spring afield, one teem- 
ing day in early August she spent the morning in the river 
bottom beside the Wabash. A heavy rain followed by 
August sun soon had her dripping while she made several 
studies of wild morning glories, but she was particularly 
careful to wrap up and drive slowly going home, so that 
she would not chill. In the afternoon the author went to 
the river northeast of town to secure mallow pictures for 
another chapter, and after working in burning sun on the 
river bank until exhausted, she several times waded the 
river to examine bushes on the o’pposite bank. On the 
way home she had a severe chill, and for the following 


28 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


three weeks lay twisted in the convulsions of congestion, 
insensible most of the time. Skilled doctors and nurses 
did their best, which they admitted would have availed 
nothing if the patient had not had a constitution without 
a flaw upon which to work. 

‘‘This is the history,’^ said Mrs. Porter, “of one little 
tail piece among the pictures. There were about thirty 
others, none so strenuous, but none easy, each having a 
living, fighting history for me. If I were to give in detail 
the story of the two years" work required to secure the set 
of bird studies illustrating ‘The Cardinal," it would make 
a much larger book than the life of the bird."" 

“The Cardinal"" was published in June of 1903. On 
the 20th of October, 1904, “Freckles"" appeared. Mrs. 
Porter had been delving afield with all her heart and 
strength for several years, and in the course of her work 
had spent every other day for three months in the Lim- 
berlost swamp, making a series of studies of the nest of a 
black vulture. Early in her married life she had met a 
Scotch lumberman, who told her of the swamp and of 
securing fine timber there for Canadian shipbuilders, and 
later when she had moved to within less than a mile of its 
northern boundary, she met a man who was buying curly 
maple, black walnut, golden oak, wild cherry, and other 
wood extremely valuable for a big furniture factory in 
Grand Rapids. There was one particular woman, of all 
those the author worked among, who exercised herself most 
concerning her. She never failed to come out if she saw 
her driving down the lane to the woods, and caution hef 
to be careful. If she felt that Mrs. Porter had become?' 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND vVORK 29 

interested and forgotten that it was long past meal time, 
she would send out food and water or buttermilk to refresh 
her. She had her family posted, and if any of them saw 
a bird with a straw or a hair in its beak, they followed until 
they found its location. It was her husband who drove 
the stake and ploughed around the killdeer nest in the 
cornfield to save it for the author; and he did many other 
acts of kindness without understanding exactly what he 
was doing or why. ‘^Merely that I wanted certain things 
was enough for those people,^’ writes Mrs. Porter. ^‘With- 
out question they helped me in every way their big hearts 
could suggest to them, because they loved to be kind, and 
to be generous was natural with them. The woman was 
busy keeping house and mothering a big brood, and every 
living creature that came her way, besides. She took 
me in, and I put her soul, body, red head, and all, into 
Sarah Duncan. The lumber and furniture man I com- 
bined in McLean. Freckles was a composite of certain 
ideals and my own field experiences, merged with those of 
Mr. Bob Burdette Black, who, at the expense of much 
time and careful work, had done more for me than any 
other ten men afield. The Angel was an idealized picture 
of mT^ daughter. 

dedicated the book to my husband, Mr. Charles Dar- 
win Porter, for several reasons, the chiefest being that he 
deserved it. When word was brO'^ght me by lumbermen 
of the nest of the Black Vulture in the Limberlost, I 
hastened to tell my husband the wonderful story of the big 
black bird, the downy white baby, the pale blue egg, and to 
beg back a rashly made promise not to work in the Limber- 


30 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


lost. Being a natural history enthusiast himself, he agreed 
that I must go; but he qualified the assent with the proviso 
that no one less careful of me than he, might accompany 
me there. His business had forced him to allow me to 
work alone, with hired guides or the help of oilmen and 
farmers elsewhere; but a Limberlost trip at that time war 
not to be joked about. It had not been shorn, brandedj 
and tamed. There were most excellent reasons why 1 
should not go there. Much of it was impenetrable. Only a 
few trees had been taken out; oilmen were just invading it. 
In its physical aspect it was a treacherous swamp and quag- 
mire filled with every plant, animal, and human danger 
known in the worst of such locations in the Central States. 

A rod inside the swamp on a road leading to an oil well 
we mired to the carriage hubs. I shielded my camera in 
my arms and before we reached the well I thought the con- 
veyance would be torn to pieces and the horse stalled. At 
the well we started on foot, Mr. Porter in kneeboots, I in 
waist-high waders. The time was late June; we forced 
our way between steaming, fetid pools, through swarms of 
gnats, flies, mosquitoes, poisonous insects, keeping a sharp 
watch for rattlesnakes. We sank ankle deep at every step, 
and logs we thought solid broke under us. Our progress 
was a steady succession of prying and pulling each other to 
the surface. Our clothing was wringing wet, and the ex- 
posed parts of our bodies lumpy with bites and stings. My 
husband found the tree, cleared the opening to the great 
prostrate log, traversed its unspeakable odours for nearly 
forty feet to its farthest recess, and brought the baby and 
egg to the light in his leaf-lined hat. 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


31 


*‘We could endure the location only by dipping napkins 
in deodorant and binding them over our mouths and 
nostrils. Every third day for almost three months we 
made this trip, until Little Chicken was able to take wing. 
Of course we soon made a road to the tree, grew accustomed 
to the disagreeable features of the swamp and contempt- 
uously familiar with its dangers, so that I worked any- 
where in it I chose with other assistance; but no trip was so 
hard and disagreeable as the first. Mr. Porter insisted 
upon finishing the Little Chicken series, so that Meserve’ 
is a poor word for any honour that might accrue to him for 
his part in the book.^’ 

This was the nucleus of the book, but the story itself 
originated from the fact that one day, while leaving the 
swamp, a big feather with a shaft over twenty inches long 
came spinning and swirling earthward and fell in the 
author’s path. Instantly she looked upward to locate the 
bird, which from the size and formation of the quill could 
have been nothing but an eagle; her eyes, well trained and 
fairly keen though they were, could not see the bird, which 
must have been soaring above range. Familiar with the 
life of the vulture family, the author changed the bird 
from which the feather fell to that described in ^‘Freckles.” 
Mrs. Porter had the old swamp at that time practically un- 
touched, and all its traditions to work upon and stores of 
natural history material. This falling feather began the 
book which in a few days she had definitely planned and in 
six months completely written. Her title for it was ‘‘The 
Falling Feather,” that tangible thing which came drifting 
down from Nowhere, just as the boy came, and she has 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


3 ^ 

always regretted the change to Freckles/’ John Murray 
publishes a British edition of this book which is even better 
liked in Ireland and Scotland than in England. 

As ‘^The Cardinal” was published originally not by 
Doubleday, Page & Company, but by another firm, the 
author had talked over with the latter house the scheme 
of ^^Freckles” and it had been agreed to publish the story 
as soon as Mrs. Porter was ready. How the book finally 
came to Doubleday, Page & Company she recounts as 
follows: 

^*By the time ^Freckles’ was finished, I had exercised 
my woman’s prerogative and ‘changed my mind’; so I sent 
the manuscript to Doubleday, Page & Company, who 
accepted it. They liked it well enough to take a special in- 
terest in it and to bring it out with greater expense than it 
was at all customary to put upon a novel at that time; and 
this in face of the fact that they had repeatedly warned me 
that the nature work in it would kill fully half its chances 
with the public. Mr. F. N. Doubleday, starting on a trip 
to the Bahamas, remarked that he would like to take a 
manuscript with him to read, and the office force decided 
to put ‘Freckles’ into his grip. The story of the plucky 
young chap won his way to the heart of the publishers, 
under a silk cotton tree, ’neath bright southern skies, and 
made such a friend of him that through the years of its 
book-life it has been the object of special attention. Mr. 
George Doran gave me a photograph which Mr. Horace 
MacFarland made of Mr. Doubleday during this reading 
of the Mss. of ‘Freckles’ which is especially interesting.” 

That more than 2,000,000 readers have found pleasure 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


35 

and profit in Mrs. Porter’s books is a cause for particular 
gratification. These stories all have, as a fundamental 
reason of their existence, the author’s great love of nature. 
To have imparted this love to others — to have inspired 
many hundreds of thousands to look for the first time with 
seeing eyes at the pageant of the out-of-doors — is a satis- 
faction that must endure. For the part of the publishers, 
they began their business by issuing ‘‘Nature Books’^ at a 
time when the sale of such works was problematical. As 
their tastes and inclinations were along the same lines 
which Mrs. Porter loved to follow, it gave them great pleas- 
ure to be associated with her books which opened the eyes 
of so great a public to new and worthy fields of enjoy- 
ment. 

The history of “Freckles” is unique. The publishers 
had inserted marginal drawings on many pages, but these, 
instead of attracting attention to the nature charm of the 
book, seemed to have exactly a contrary effect. The 
public wanted a novel. The illustrations made it appear 
to be a nature book, and it required three long slow years 
for “Freckles” to pass from hand to hand and prove that 
there really was a novel between the covers, but that it was 
a story that took its own time and wound slowly toward its 
end, stopping its leisurely course for bird, flower, lichen 
face, blue sky, perfumed wind, and the closest intimacies 
of the daily life of common folk. Ten years have wrought 
a great change in the sentiment against nature work and 
the interest in it. Thousands who then looked upon the 
World with unobserving eyes are now straining every nerve 
to accumulate enough to be able to end life where they 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


34 

may have bird, flower, and tree for daily compan- 
ions. 

Mrs. Porter^s account of the advice she received at this 
time is particularly interesting. Three editors who read 
Freckles’^ before it was published offered to produce it, 
but all of them expressed precisely the same opinion : ^‘The 
book will never sell well as it is. If you want to live from 
the proceeds of your work, if you want to sell even moder- 
ately, you must cut out the nature stuff ^‘Now to put in 
the nature stuffy^ continues the author, ‘^was the express 
purpose for which the book had been written. I had had 
one yearns experience with ‘The Song of the Cardinal,’ 
frankly a nature book, and from the start I realized that I 
never could reach the audience I wanted with a book on 
nature alone. To spend time writing a book based wholly 
upon human passion and its outworking I would not. So I 
compromised on a book into which I put all the nature 
work that came naturally within its scope, and seasoned it 
with little bits of imagination and straight copy from the 
lives of men and women I had known intimately, folk who 
lived in a simple, common way with which I was familiar. 
So I said to my publishers: ‘I will write the books exactly 
as they take shape in my mind. You publish them. I 
know they will sell enough that you will not lose. If I do 
not make over six hundred dollars on a book I shall never 
utter a complaint. Make up my work as I think it should 
be and leave it to the people as to what kind of book they 
will take into their hearts and homes.’ I altered ‘Freckles’ 
slightly, but from that time on we worked on this agree- 
ment. 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


35 


‘"My years of nature work have not been without con- 
siderable insight into human nature, as well,’’ continues 
Mrs. Porter. “I know its failings, its inborn tendencies, 
its weaknesses, its failures, its depth of crime; and the 
people who feel called upon to spend their time analyzing, 
digging into, and uncovering these sources of depravity 
have that privilege, more’s the pity! If I had my way 
about it, this is a privilege no one could have in books in- 
tended for indiscriminate circulation. I stand squarely 
for book censorship, and I firmly believe that with a few 
more years of such books, as half a dozen I could mention, 
public opinion will demand this very thing. My life has 
been fortunate in one glad way: I have lived mostly in the 
country and worked in the woods. For every bad man 
and woman I have ever known, I have met, lived with, and 
am intimately acquainted with an overwhelming number 
of thoroughly clean and decent people who still believe in 
God and cherish high ideals, and it is upon the lives of these 
that I base what I write. To contend that this does not pro- 
duce a picture true to life is idiocy. It does. It produces 
a picture true to ideal life; to the best that good men and 
good women can do at level best. 

“I care very little for the magazine or newspaper critics 
who proclaim that there is no such thing as a moral man, 
and that my pictures of life are sentimental and idealized. 
They are I And I glory in them I They are straight, living 
pictures from the lives of men and women of morals, 
honour, and loving kindness. They form ‘idealized pic- 
tures of life’ because they are copies from life where it 
touches religion, chastity, love, home, and hope of Heaven 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


36 

ultimately. None of these roads leads to publicity and the 
divorce court. They all end in the shelter and seclusion of 
a home. 

^^Such a big majority of book critics and authors have 
begun to teach, whether they really believe it or not, that 
no book is true to life unless it is true to the worst in life^ that 
the idea has infected even the women. 

In 1906, having seen a few of Mrs. Porter’s studies of 
bird life, Mr. Edward Bok telegraphed the author asking 
to meet him in Chicago. She had a big portfolio of fine 
prints from plates for which she had gone to the last ex- 
tremity of painstaking care, and the result was an order 
from Mr. Bok for a six months’ series in the Ladies^ Home 
Journal of the author’s best bird studies accompanied by 
descriptions of how she secured them. This material was 
later put in book form under the title, ‘^What I Have 
Done with Birds,” and is regarded as authoritative on the 
subject of bird photography and bird life, for in truth it 
covers every phase of the life of the birds described^ and 
contains much of other nature subjects. 

By this time Mrs. Porter had made a contract with her 
publishers to alternate her books. She agreed to do a 
nature book for love, and then, by way of compromise, a 
piece of nature work spiced with enough fiction to tempt 
her class of readers. In this way she hoped that they 
would absorb enough of the nature work while reading the 
fiction to send them afield, and at the same time keep in 
their minds her picture of what she considers the only life 
worth living. She was still assured that only a straight 
novel would ^^pay,” but she was living, meeting all her ex- 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


37 


penses, giving her family many luxuries, and saving a little 
sum for a rainy day she foresaw on her horoscope. To be 
comfortably clothed and fed, to have time and tools for her 
work, is all she ever has asked of life. 

Among Mrs. Porter's readers ‘^At the Foot of the Rain- 
bow" stands as perhaps the author's strongest piece of 
fiction. 

In August of 1909 two books on which the author had 
been working for years culminated at the same time: a 
nature novel, and a straight nature book. The novel 
was, in a way, a continuation of ‘‘Freckles," filled as 
usual with wood lore, but more concerned with moths 
than birds. Mrs. Porter had been finding and picturing 
exquisite big night flyers during several years of field work 
among the birds, and from what she could have readily 
done with them she saw how it would be possible for a girl 
rightly constituted and environed to make a living, and a 
good one, at such work. So was conceived “A Girl of 
the Limberlost." “This comes fairly close to my idea 
of a good book," she writes. “No possible harm can be 
done any one in reading it. The book can, and does, 
present a hundred pictures that will draw any reader in 
closer touch with nature and the Almighty, my primal 
object in each line I write. The human side of the book 
is as close a character study as I am capable of making. 
I regard the character of Mrs. Comstock as the best 
thought-out and the cleanest-cut study of human nature 
I have so far been able to do. Perhaps the best justifica- 
tion of my idea of this book came to me recently when I 
received an application from the President for permission 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


38 

to translate it into Arabic, as the first book to be used in an 
effort to introduce our methods of nature study into the 
College of Cairo/^ 

Hodder and Stoughton of London published the Brit- 
ish edition of this work. 

At the same time that ^^A Girl of the Limberlost’^ was 
published there appeared the book called Birds of the 
Bible. This volume took shape slowly. The author 
made a long search for each bird mentioned in the Bible, 
how often, where, why; each quotation concerning it in 
the whole book, every abstract reference, why made, by 
whom, and what it meant. Then slowly dawned the 
sane and true things said of birds in the Bible compared 
with the amazing statements of Aristotle, Aristophanes, 
Pliny, and other writers of about the same period in pagan 
nations. This led to a search for the dawn of bird history 
and for the very first pictures preserved of them. On this 
book the author expended more work than on any other 
she has ever written. 

In 1911 two more books for which Mrs. Porter had 
gathered material for long periods came to a conclusion 
on the same date: ^^Music of the Wild’’ and ‘‘The Har- 
vester.” The latter of these was a nature novel; the other 
a frank nature book, filled with all outdoors — a special 
study of the sounds one hears in fields and forests, and 
photographic reproductions of the musicians and their 
instruments. 

The idea of “The Harvester” was suggested to the 
author by an editor who wanted a magazine article, with 
human interest in it, about the ginseng diggers in her part 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


39 


of the country. Mr. Porter had bought ginseng for years 
for a drug store he owned; there were several people he 
knew still gathering it for market, and growing it was be- 
coming a good business all over the country. Mrs. Porter 
learned from the United States Pharmacopaeia and from 
various other sources that the drug was used mostly by 
the Chinese, and with a wholly mistaken idea of its prop^ 
erties. The strongest thing any medical work will say 
for ginseng is that it is very mild and soothing drugd^ It 
seems that the Chinese buy and use it in enormous quan- 
tities, in the belief that it is a remedy for almost ever}' 
disease to which humanity is heir; that it will prolong life, 
and that it is a wonderful stimulant. Ancient medical 
works make this statement, laying special emphasis upon 
its stimulating qualities. The drug does none of these 
things. Instead of being a stimulant, it comes closer to a 
sedative. This investigation set the author on the search 
for other herbs that now are or might be grown as an 
occupation. Then came the idea of a man who should 
grow these drugs professionally, and of the sick girl healed 
by them. could have gone to work and started a drug 
farm myself,^^ remarks Mrs. Porter, ‘Vith exactly the 
same profit and success as the Harvester. I wrote pri- 
marily to state that to my personal knowledge, clean, 
loving men still exist in this world, and that no man is 
forced to endure the grind of city life if he wills otherwise. 
Any one who likes, with even such simple means as herbs 
he can dig from fence corners, may start a drug farm that 
in a short time will yield him delightful work and inde- 
pendence. I wrote the hook as I thought it should be written^, 


40 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


to prove my points and establish my contentions. I think 
it did. Men the globe around promptly wrote me that they 
always had observed the moral code; others that the subject 
never in all their lives had been presented to them from 
my point of vieWy but now that it had beeny they would 
change and do what they could to influence all men to do the 
same.^^ 

Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton publish a British edi- 
tion of ‘‘The Harvester/^ there is an edition in Scandi- 
navian, it was running serially in a German magazine, 
but for a time at least the German and French edi- 
tions that were arranged will be stopped by this war, 
as there was a French edition of “The Song of the Car- 
dinal.” 

After a short rest, the author began putting into shape 
a book for which she had been compiling material since the 
beginning of field work. From the first study she made of 
an exquisite big night moth, Mrs. Porter used every op- 
portunity to secure more and representative studies of 
teach family in her territory, and eventually found the work 
so fascinating that she began hunting cocoons and raising 
caterpillars in order to secure life histories and make illus- 
trations with fidelity to life. “It seems,” comments the 
author, “that scientists and lepidopterists from the be- 
^ginning have had no hesitation in describing and using 
mounted moth and butterfly specimens for book text and 
illustration, despite the fact that their colours fade rapidly, 
that the wings are always in unnatural positions, and 
the bodies shrivelled. I would quite as soon accept the 
/mummy of any particular aaember of the Rameses familv 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


4 % 

as a fair representation of the living man, as a mounted 
moth for a live one/’ 

When she failed to secure the moth she wanted in a 
living and perfect specimen for her studies, the author set 
out to raise one, making photographic studies from th^ 
eggs through the entire life process. There was one June 
during which she scarcely slept for more than a few hours 
of daytime the entire month. She turned her bedroom 
into a hatchery, where were stored the most precious co- 
coons; and if she lay down at night it was with those 
she thought would produce moths before morning on her 
pillow, where she could not fail to hear them emerging. At 
the first sound she would be up with notebook in hand, and 
by dawn, busy with cameras. Then she would be forced 
to hurry to the darkroom and develop her plates in order 
to be sure that she had a perfect likeness, before releasing, 
the specimen, for she did release all she produced except 
one pair of each kind, never having sold a moth, personally. 
Often where the markings were wonderful and compli- 
cated, as soon as the wings were fully developed Mrs. 
Porter copied the living specimen in water colours for her 
illustrations, frequently making several copies in order to 
be sure that she laid on the colour enough brighter than her 
subject so that when it died it would be exactly the same 
shade. 

‘‘Never in all my life,” writes the author, “have I had 
such exquisite joy in work as I had in painting the illus- 
trations for this volume of ‘Moths of the Limberlost.’ 
Colour work had advanced to such a stage that I knew 
from the beautiful reproductions in Arthur Rackham’s. 


42 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


‘Rhelngold and Valkyrie^ and several other books on the 
market, that time so spent would not be lost. Mr. 
Doubleday had assured me personally that I might count 
on exact reproduction, and such details of type and paper 
as I chose to select. I used the easel made for me when a 
girl, under the supervision of my father, and I threw my 
whole heart into the work of copying each line and delicate 
shading on those wonderful wings, ^all diamonded with 
panes of quaint device, innumerable stains and splendid 
dyes,’ as one poet describes them. There were times, when 
in working a mist of colour over another background, I cut 
a brush down to three hairs. Some of these illustrations I 
sent back six and seven times, to be worked over before the 
illustration plates were exact duplicates of the originals, 
and my heart ached for the engravers, who must have had 
Job-like patience; but it did not ache enough to stop me 
until I felt the reproduction exact. This book tells its own 
story of long and patient waiting for a specimen, of watch- 
ing, of disappointments, and triumphs. I love it especially 
among my book children because it represents my highest 
ideals in the making of a nature book, and I can take any 
skeptic afield and prove the truth of the natural history it 
contains.” 

In August of 1913 the author’s novel ^^Laddie” was pub- 
lished in New York, London, Sydney and Toronto simul- 
taneously. This book contains the same mixture of ro- 
mance and nature interest as the others, and is modelled on 
the same plan of introducing nature objects peculiar to the 
location, and characters, many of whom are from life, 
typical of the locality at a given period. The first thing 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 43 

many critics said of it was that such people ever ex- 
isted, and no such life was ever lived/’ In reply to this the 
author said: ^‘Of a truth, the home I described in this book 
I knew to the last grain of wood in the doors, and I painted 
it with absolute accuracy; and many of the people I de- 
scribed I knew more intimately than I ever have known 
any others. Taken as a whole it represents a perfectly 
faithful picture of home lifey in a family who were reared and 
educated exactly as this book indicates. There was such a 
man as Laddie, and he was as much bigger and better than 
my description of him as a real thing is always better than 
its presentment. The only difference, barring the nature 
work, between my books and those of many other writers, 
is that I prefer to describe and to perpetuate the best I 
have known in life; whereas many authors seem to feel 
that they have no hope of achieving a high literary stand- 
ing unless they delve in and reproduce the worst. 

^‘To deny that wrong and pitiful things exist in life is 
folly, but to believe that these things are made better by 
promiscuous discussion at the hands of writers fail to 
prove by their books that their viewpoint is either right, 
clean, or helpful, is close to Insanity. If there is to be any 
error on either side in a book, then God knows it is far 
better that it should be upon the side of pure sentiment 
and high ideals than upon that of a too loose discussion of 
subjects which often open to a large part of the world their 
first knowledge of such forms of sin, profligate expenditure, 
and waste of life’s best opportunities. There is one great 
beauty in idealized romance: reading it can make no one 
worse than he is, while it may help thousands to a cleaner 


44 gene STRATTON-PORTER 

life and higher inspiration than they ever before have 
known/’ 

Mrs. Porter has written ten books, and it is not out of 
place here to express her attitude toward them. Each was 
written, she says, from her heart’s best impulses. They 
are as clean and helpful as she knew how to make them, as 
beautiful and interesting. She has never spared herself in 
the least degree, mind or body, when it came to giving her 
best, and she has never considered money in relation to 
what she was writing. 

During the hard work and exposure of those early years, 
during rainy days and many nights in the darkroom, she 
went straight ahead with field work, sending around the 
globe for books and delving to secure material for such 
hooks as ‘‘Birds of the Bible,” “Music of the Wild,” and 
“Moths of the Limberlost.” Every day devoted to such 
work was “commercially” lost, as publishers did not fail to 
tell her. But that was the work she could do, and do with 
<exceeding joy. She could do it better pictorially, on ac- 
count of her lifelong knowledge of living things afield, than 
any other woman had as yet had the strength and nerve to 
do it. It was work in which she gloried, and she persisted. 
“Had I been working for money,” comments the author, 
“not one of these nature books ever would have been 
written, or an illustration made.” 

When the public had discovered her and given generous 
approval to “A Girl of the Limberlost,” when “The 
Harvester” had established a new record, that would have 
been the time for the author to prove her commercialism 
by dropping nature work, and plunging headlong into 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


45 

books it would pay to write, and for which many pub- 
lishers were offering alluring sums. Mrs. Porter’s answer 
was the issuing of such books as Music of the Wild” and 
“Moths of the Limberlost.” No argument is necessary^ 
Mr. Edward Shuman, formerly critic of the Chicaga 
Record^Heraldy was impressed by this method of work and 
pointed it out in a review. It appealed to Mr. Shuman„ 
when “Moths of the Limberlost” came in for review, fol- 
lowing the tremendous success of “The Harvester,” that 
had the author been working for money, she could have 
written half a dozen more “Harvesters” while putting 
seven years of field work, on a scientific subject, into a per- 
sonally illustrated work. 

In an interesting passage dealing with her books, Mrs> 
Porter writes: “I have done three times the work on my 
books of fiction that I see other writers putting into a 
novel, in order to make all natural history allusions accurate 
and to write them in such fashion that they will meet with 
the commendation of high schools, colleges, and univer- 
sities using what I write as text books, and for the homes 
that place them in their libraries. I am perfectly willing 
to let time and the hearts of the people set my work in its 
ultimate place. I have no delusions concerning it. 

“To my way of thinking and working the greatest serv- 
ice a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him 
with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If 
in one small degree it shows him where he can be a gentler,, 
saner, cleaner, kindlier man, it is a wonder-working book. 
If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw 
for himself, and leads him one step toward the God of the 


GENE STRATTON-PORTER 


46 

Universe, it is a beneficial book, for one step into the 
miracles of nature leads to that long walk, the glories of 
which so strengthen even a boy who thinks he is dying, 
that he faces his struggle like a gladiator.” 

During the past ten years thousands of people have sent 
the author word that through her books they have been led 
afield and to their first realization of the beauties of nature 
Her mail brings an average of ten such letters a day, 
mostly from students, teachers, and professional people of 
our largest cities. It can probably be said in all truth of 
her nature books and nature novels, that in the past ten 
years they have sent more people afield than all the 
scientific writings of the same period. That is a big state- 
ment, but it is very likely pretty close to the truth. Mrs. 
Porter has been asked by two London and one Edinburgh 
publishers for the privilege of bringing out complete sets of 
her nature books, but as yet she has not felt ready to do 
this. 

In bringing this sketch of Gene Stratton-Porter to a close 
it will be interesting to quote the author^s own words 
describing the Limberlost Swamp, its gradual disappear- 
ance under the encroachments of business, and her re- 
moval to a new field even richer in natural beauties. She 
says: “In the beginning of the end a great swamp region 
lay in northeastern Indiana. Its head was in what is now 
Noble and DeKalb counties; its body in Allen and Wells, 
and its feet in southern Adams and northern Jay. The 
Limberlost lies at the foot and was, when I settled near it, 
exactly as described in my hooks. The process of dismant- 
ling it was told in ‘Freckles’ to start with, carried on in 


STORY OF HER LIFE AND WORK 


47 

'A Girl of the Limberlost/ and finished in ‘Moths of the 
Limberlost/ Now it has so completely fallen prey to 
commercialism through the devastation of lumbermen, 
oilmen, and farmers, that I have been forced to move my 
working territory and build a new cabin about seventy 
miles north, at the head of the swamp in Noble county, 
where there are many lakes, miles of unbroken marsh, and 
a far greater wealth of plant and animal life than existed 
during my time in the southern part. At the north end 
every bird that frequents the Central States is to be found. 
Here grow in profusion many orchids, fringed gentians, 
cardinal flowers, turtle heads, starry campions, purple 
gerardias, and grass of Parnassus. In one season I have 
located here almost every flower named in the botanies as 
native to these regions and several that I can find in no 
book in my library. 

“But this change of territory involves the purchase of 
fifteen acres of forest and orchard land, on a lake shore in 
marsh country. It means the building of a permanent, 
all-year-round home, which will provide the comforts of 
life for my family and furnish a workshop consisting of a 
library, a photographic darkroom and negative closet, and 
a printing room for me. I could live in such a home as I 
could provide on the income from my nature work alone; 
but when my working grounds were cleared, drained and 
ploughed up, literally wiped from the face of the earth, I 
never could have moved to new country had it not been for 
the earnings of the novels, which I now spend, and always 
have spent, in great part upon my nature work. Based on 
this plan of work and life I have written ten books, and 


48 GENE STRATTON-PORTER 

^please God I live so long/ I shall write ten more. Possibly 
every one of them will be located in northern Indiana. 
Each one will be filled with all the field and woods legitim 
mately falling to its location and peopled with the best men 
and women I have known. 


/ 


f 


/ 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 




ft 


\ 


I 





t 





AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


CHAPTER I 

The Rat-catchers of the Wabash 

H ey, you swate-scented little heart-warmer 

cried Jimmy Malone, as he lifted his tenth trap, 
weighted with a struggling muskrat, from the 
Wabash. ‘‘Varmint you may be to all the rist of creation, 
but you mane a night at Casey’s to me.” 

Jimmy whistled softly while he reset the trap. For the 
moment he forgot that he was five miles from home, that 
it was a mile farther to the end of his line at the lower curve 
of Horseshoe Bend, that his feet and lingers were almost 
freezing, and that every rat of the ten now in the bag on his 
back made him thirstier. He shivered as the cold wind 
sweeping the curves of the river struck him; but when an 
unusually heavy gust dropped the ice and snow from a 
branch on the back of his head, he laughed, as he ducked 
and cried: 

“Kape your snowballing till the Fourth of July, will 
3^ou!” 

“Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!” remarked a tiny gray bird cn 
the tree above him. Jimmy glanced up. “Chickie, 
Chickie, Chickie,” he said. “I can’t till by your dress 
whether you are a hin or a rooster. But I can till by your 


51 


52 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

employmint that you are working for grub. Have to 
hustle lively for every worm you find, don’t you, Chickie? 
Now me. I’m hustlin’ lively for a drink, and I be domn if it 
seems nicessary with a whole river of drinkin’ stuff flowin’ 
right under me feet. But the old Wabash ain’t runnin’ 
‘wine and milk and honey,’ not by the jug-full. It seems 
to be compounded of aquil parts of mud, crude ile, and 
rain water. If ’twas only runnin’ Melwood, be gorry, 
Chickie, you’d see a mermaid named Jimmy Malone sittin’ 
on the Kingfisher Stump, combin’ its auburn hair with a 
breeze, and scoopin’ whiskey down its gullet with its tail 
fin. No, hold on, Chickie, you wouldn’t either. I’m too 
flat-chisted for a mermaid, and I’d have no time to lave off 
gurglin’ for the hair-combin’ act, which, Chickie, to me 
notion is as issential to a mermaid as the curves. I’d be a 
sucker, the biggest sucker in the Gar-hole, Chickie bird. 
I’d be an all-day sucker, be gobs; yls, and an all-night 
sucker, too. Come to think of it, Chickie, be domn if I’d 
be a sucker at all. Look at the mouths of thim ! Puckered 
up with a drawstring! Chickie, think of Jimmy Malone 
lyin’ at the bottom of a river flowin’ with Melwood, and a 
puckerin’-string mouth! Wouldn’t that break the heart 
of you? I know what I’d be. I’d be the Black Bass of 
Horseshoe Bend, Chickie, and I’d locate below the shoals 
headin’ up stream, and I’d hold me mouth wide open till I 
paralyzed me jaws so I couldn’t shut thim. I’d let the 
pure stuff wash over me gills constant, world without end. 
Good-bye, Chickie. Hope you got your grub, and pretty 
soon I’ll have enough to drink to make me feel like I was 
the Bass for one night, anyway.” 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 53 

Jimmy hurried to his next trap, which was empty, but 
the one after that contained a rat, and there were foot- 
prints in the snow. 

‘‘That’s where the porrage-heart of the Scotchman 
comes in,” said Jimmy, as he held up the rat one foot, 
and gave it a sharp rap over the head with the trap to 
make sure it was dead. “Dannie could no more hear a rat 
fast in one of me traps and not come over and put it out of 
its misery, than he could dance a hornpipe. And him only 
sicond hand from hornpipe land, too! But his feet’s like 
lead. Poor Dannie! He gets about half the rats I do. 
He niver did have luck.” 

Jimmy’s gay face clouded for an instant. The twinkle 
faded from his eyes, and a look of unrest swept into them. 
He muttered something, and catching up his bag, shoved 
in the rat. As he reset the trap, a big crow dropped from 
branch to branch on a sycamore above him. His back 
scarcely was turned before it alighted on the ice, and rav- 
enously picked at three drops of blood purpling there. 

Down the ice-sheeted river led Dannie’s trail, showing 
plainly across the snow blanket. The wind raved through 
the trees, and around the curves of the river. The dark 
earth of the banks peeping from under overhanging ice and 
snow, appeared like the entrance to deep mysterious caves. 
Jimmy’s superstitious soul readily peopled them with gob- 
lins and devils. He shuddered; then began to talk aloud 
to cheer himself: “Elivin muskrat skins, times fifteen cints 
apiece, one dollar sixty-five. That will buy more than 
I can hold. Hagginy! Won’t I be takin’ one long fine 
gurgle of the pure s^tufFI And there’s the boys! I might 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


54 

do the grand for once. One on me for the house! I might 
pay something on my back score; but first Til drink till I 
swell like a poisoned pup. And I ought to get Mary that 
milk pail she’s been kickin’ for this last month. Women 
and cows are always kickin’! If the blarsted cow hadn’t 
kicked a hole in the pail, there’d be no need of Mary kick- 
ing for a new one. But dough is dubious soldering. 
Mary says it’s bad enough on the dish pan, but it positively 
ain’t hilthy about the milk pail, and she is right. We 
ought to have a new pail. I guess I’ll get it first, and fill 
up on what’s left. One for a quarter will do. I’ve several 
traps yet, I may get a few more rats.” 

The virtuous resolve to buy a milk pail before he 
quenched the thirst which burned him, so elated Jimmy 
with good opinion of himself that he began whistling gayly 
as he strode toward his next trap. By that token, Dannie 
Macnoun, resetting an empty trap a quarter of a mile be- 
low, knew that Jimmy was coming, and that as usual luck 
was with him. Catching his blood and water dripping 
bag, Dannie dodged a rotten branch that came crashing 
down under the weight of its icy load. He stepped to the 
river, pulling on his patched wool-lined mittens as he 
waited for Jimmy. 

‘^How many, Dannie?” called Jimmy from afar. 

Seven,” answered Dannie. ^^What for ye?” 

^^Elivin,” replied Jimmy, with a bit of unconscious 
swagger. ‘H am havin’ poor luck to-day.” 

‘‘How mony wad satisfy ye?” asked Dannie sarcasti- 
cally. 

“Ain’t got time to figure that,” answered Jimmy, work- 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 55 

ing in a double shuffle as he walked. ‘^Thrash around a 
little, Dannie. It will warm you up.^’ 
am no cauld,’’ answered Dannie. 

‘^No cauld!^’ imitated Jimmy. ^‘No cauld! Come to 
observe you closer, I do detect symptoms of sunstroke in 
the ridness of your face, and the whiteness about your 
mouth; but the frost on your neck scarf, and the icicles 
fistooned around the tail of your coat, tell a different 
story.'’ 

‘^Dannie, you remind me of the baptizin’ of Pete Cox 
last winter. Pete's nothin' but skin and bone, and he niver 
had a square meal in his life to warm him. It took pushin^ 
and pullin' to get him in the water, and a scum froze over 
while he was under. Pete came up shakin' like the feeder 
on a thrashin' machine, and whin he could spake at all, 
^ Bless Jasus,' says he, T'm jist as wa-wa-warm as I wa-wa- 
want to be.' So are you, Dannie, but there's a difference 
in how warm folks want to be. For meself, now, I could 
aisily bear a little more hate." 

It's honest. I'm no cauld," insisted Dannie. He might 
have added that if Jimmy would not fill his system with 
Casey’s poisons, that degree of cold would not chill and 
pinch him either; being Dannie, he neither thought nor 
said it. 

‘^Why, I'm frozen to me sowl!" cried Jimmy, as he 
changed the rat bag to his other hand, to beat the empty 
one against his leg. ‘‘Say, Dannie, where do you think 
the Kingfisher is wintering?" 

‘‘And the Black Bass," answered Dannie. “Where do 
ye suppose the Black Bass is noo?" 


S6 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

‘"Strange you should mintion the Black Bass/^ said 
Jimmy. ‘T was just havin^ a little talk about him with a 
frind of mine named Chickie-dom, no, Chickie-dee, who 
works a grub stake back there. The Bass might be lyin^ 
in the river bed right under our feet. Don^t you remimber 
the time whin I put on three big cut-worms, and skittered 
thim beyond the log that lays across here, and he lept 
from the water till we both saw him the best we ever did, 
and nothin^ but my rotten old line ever saved him? Or 
he might be where it slumps off below the Kingfisher 
stump. But I know where he is all right. He^s down in 
the Gar-hole, and he’ll come back here spawning time, and 
chase minnows when the Kingfisher comes home. But 
Dannie, where the nation do you suppose the Kingfisher 



“No so far away as ye might think,” replied Dannie. 
“Doc Hues told me that coming on the train frae Indian- 
apolis on the fifteenth of December, he saw one fly across 
a little pond juist below Winchester. I believe they go 
south slowly, as the cold drives them, and stop near as they 
can find guid fishing. Dinna that stump look lonely 
wi’out him?” 

“And sound lonely without the Bass slashing around! 
I am going to have that Bass this summer if I don’t do a 
thing but fish!” vowed Jimmy. 

“I’ll surely have a try at him,” answered Dannie, his 
gray eyes twinkling. “We’ve caught most everything 
else in the Wabash, and our reputation fra taking guid fish 
is ahead of any one on the river, except the Kingfisher. 
Why the diel dinna one of us haul out that Bass?” 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 57 

“Ain’t I just told you that I am going to hook him this 
summer?” shivered Jimmy. 

“Dinna ye hear me mention that I intended to take a 
try at him mysel’?” questioned Dannie. “Have ye for- 
gotten that I know how to fish?” 

“’Nough breeze to-day without starting a Highlander,” 
interposed Jimmy hastily. “I believe I hear a rat in my 
next trap. That will make me twilve, and it’s good and 
glad of it I am, for I’ve to walk to town when my line is 
reset. There’s something Mary wants.” 

“If Mary wants ye to go to town, why dinna ye leave 
me to finish your traps, and start now?” asked Dannie. 
“It’s getting dark, and if ye are so late ye canna 
see the drifts, ye never can cut across the fields; fra 
the snow is piled waist high, and it’s a mile farther by 
the road.” 

“ I got to skin my rats first, or I’ll be havin’ to ask credit 
again,” replied Jimmy. 

“That’s easy,” answered Dannie. “Turn your rats 
over to me richt noo. I’ll give ye market price fra them in 
cash.” 

“ But the skinnin’ of them,” objected Jimmy for decency 
sake, although his eyes were beginning to shine and his 
fingers to tremble. 

“Never ye mind about that,” retorted Dannie. “I 
like to take my time to it, and fix them up nice. Elivin, 
did ye say?” 

“Elivin,” answered Jimmy, breaking into a jig, sup- 
posedly to keep his feet warm, in reality because he could, 
not stand quietly while Dannie pulled off his mittens, ua- 


58 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

strapped his wallet, and carefully counted out the money. 
“Is that all ye need?” he asked. 

For an instant Jimmy hesitated. Missing a chance to 
get even a few cents more meant a little shorter time at 
Casey’s. “That’s enough, I think,” he said. “I wish I’d 
stayed out of matrimony, and then maybe I could iver 
have a cint of me own. You ought to be glad you haven’t 
a woman to consume ivry penny you earn before it 
reaches your pockets, Dannie Micnoun.” 

“I hae never seen Mary consume much but calico and 
food,” Dannie said dryly. 

“Oh, it ain’t so much what a woman really spinds,” 
said Jimmy, peevishly, as he shoved the money into his 
pocket, and pulled on his mittens. “ It’s what you know 
she would spind if she had the chance.” 

“I dinna think ye’ll break up on that,” laughed Dannie. 

And that was what Jimmy wanted. So long as he 
could set Dannie laughing, he could mould him. 

“No, but I’ll break down,” lamented Jimmy in sore 
self-pity, as he remembered the quarter reserved for the 
purchase of the milk pail. 

“Ye go on, and hurry,” urged Dannie. “If ye dinna 
start home by seven. I’ll be combing the drifts fra ye be- 
fore morning.” 

“Anything I can do for you?” asked Jimmy, tightening 
his old red scarf. 

“Yes,” answered Dannie. “Do your errand and start 
straight home, your teeth are chattering noo. A little 
more exposure, and the rheumatism will be grinding ye 
again. Ye will hurry, Jimmy?” 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OY THE WABASH 59 

^‘'Sure!’^ cried Jimmy, ducking under a snow slide, and 
breaking into a whistle as he turned toward the road. 

Dannie’s gaze followed Jimmy’s retreating figure until 
he climbed the bank, and was lost in the woods, while the 
light in his eyes was the light of love. He glanced at the 
sky, and hurried down the river. First across to Jimmy’s 
side to gather his rats and reset his traps, then to his own. 
But luck seemed to have turned, for the remainder of 
Dannie’s were full, and all of Jimmy’s were empty. But as 
he was gone, it was not necessary for Dannie to slip across 
and fill them, as was his custom when they worked to^ 
gether. He would divide the rats at skinning time, so that 
Jimmy would have just twice as many as he, because 
Jimmy had a wife to support. 

The last trap of the line lay a little below the curve of 
Horseshoe Bend; there Dannie twisted the tops of the bags 
together, climbed the bank, and started across Rainbow 
Bottom. He settled his load to his shoulders, and glanced 
ahead to choose the shortest route. He stopped suddenly 
with a quick intake of breath. 

^^God!” he cried reverently. *^Hoo beautifu’ are Thy 
works.” 

The ice-covered Wabash circled Rainbow Bottom like a 
broad white frame; inside it was a perfect picture wrought 
in crystal white and snow shadows. The blanket on the 
earth lay smoothly in even places, rose with knolls, fell 
with valleys, curved over prostrate logs, heaped in mounds 
where bushes grew thickly, and piled high in drifts where 
the wind blew free. 

In the shelter of the bottom the wind had not stripped 


6o AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


the trees of their loads as it had those along the river. The 
willows, maples, and soft woods bent almost to earth with 
their shining burden; but the stout, stiffly upstanding trees, 
the oaks, elms, and cottonwoods defied the elements to 
bow their proud heads; while the three mighty trunks of 
the great sycamore in the middle appeared white as the 
snow, and dwarfed its companions as it never had in 
summer; its wide-spreading branches were sharply cut 
against the blue background, and they tossed their frosted 
balls in the face of Heaven. The giant of Rainbow Bottom 
might be broken, but it never would bend. Every clamber- 
ing vine, every weed and dried leaf wore a coat of lace- 
webbed frostwork. The wind swept a mist of tiny 
crystals through the air, while from the shelter of the deep 
woods across the river a Cardinal whistled gayly. 

The bird of Good Cheer, whistling no doubt on an 
empty crop, made Dannie think of Jimmy, and his unfail- 
ing fountain of mirth. Dear Jimmy ! Would he ever take 
life seriously.? How good he was to tramp to town and 
back after five miles on the ice. He thought of Mary with 
almost a touch of impatience. What did the woman want 
that was so necessary as to send a man to town after a day 
on the ice.? Jimmy would be dog tired when he came 
home. Dannie decided to hurry, and do the feeding and 
carry in the wood before he began to skin the rats. 

He found walking uncertain. He plunged into unsus- 
pected hollows, and waded drifts, so that he was panting 
when he reached the lane. From there he caught the gray 
curl of smoke against the sky from one of two log cabins 
side by side at the top of the embankment, and he almost 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 6i 


ran toward them. Mary might think they were late at 
the traps, and be out doing the feeding, which would be 
cold for a woman. 

On reaching his own door, he dropped the rat bags in- 
side; then hurried to the yard of the other cabin. He 
gathered a big load of wood in his arms, and stamping the 
snow from his feet, called ‘‘Open!’^ at the door. Dannie 
stepped inside and filled the empty box. With smiling 
eyes he turned to Mary, as he brushed the snow and moss 
from his sleeves. 

^‘Nothing but luck to-day,’’ he said. ^^Jimmy took 
eleven fine skins frae his traps before he started to town; 
I got five more that are his, and I hae eight o^ my own.” 

Mary seemed such a dream to Dannie, standing there 
all pink, warm and tidy in her fresh blue dress, that he 
blinked and smiled, half bewildered. 

‘‘What did Jimmy go to town for?” she asked. 

“Whatever it was ye wanted,” answered Dannie. 

“What was it I wanted?” persisted Mary. 

“He dinna tell me,” replied Dannie, the smile waverings 

“Me, either,” said Mary. She stooped and picked uf 
her sewing. 

Dannie went out, gently closing the door. He stood foi 
a second on the step, forcing himself to take an inventorji 
of the work. There were the chickens to feed, and the 
cows to milk, feed, and water. Both the teams must be fed 
and bedded, a fire in his own house made, and two dozen 
rats skinned, and the skins put to stretch and cure. And at 
the end of it all, instead of a bed and rest, there was every 
probability that he must drive to town after Jimmy; for 


62 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


Jimmy could become helpless enough to freeze in a drift on 
a dollar sixty-five. 

“Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy!” muttered Dannie. “I wish ye 
wadna.” He was not thinking of himself so much as of the 
eyes of the woman inside. 

So Dannie did all the work, and cooked his supper, be- 
cause he never ate in Jimmy’s cabin when Jimmy was not 
there. Then he skinned rats, and watched the clock, be- 
cause if Jimmy did not come by eleven, it meant he must 
drive to town and bring him home. No wonder Jimmy 
chilled at the trapping when he kept his blood on fire with 
whiskey. At half-past ten, Dannie, with scarcely half the 
rats finished, went into the storm and hitched to the single 
buggy. Then he tapped at Mary Malone’s door, quite 
softly, so that he would not disturb her if she had gone to 
bed. She was not sleeping, however, and the loneliness of 
her slight figure, as she stood with the lighted room behind 
her, appealed to Dannie forcibly, so that his voice trembled 
with pity as he said: 

“Mary, I’ve run out o’ my curing compound juist in the 
midst of skinning the finest bunch o’ rats we’ve taken frae 
the traps this winter. I am going to drive to town fra 
some more before the stores close, and we will be back in 
less than an hour. I thought I’d tell ye, so if ye wanted 
me ye wad know why I dinna answer. Ye winna be 
afraid, Avill ye?” 

“No,” replied Mary, “I won’t be afraid.” 

“Bolt the doors, and pile on plenty of wood to keep ye 
warm,” said Dannie as he turned away. 

For a minute Mary gazed into the storm. Then a gust 


THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH 63 

of wind nearly swept her from her feet, so she pushed the 
door shut, and slid the heavy bolt into place. For a little 
while she leaned and listened to the storm outside. She 
was a clean, neat, beautiful Irish woman. Her eyes were 
wide and blue, her cheeks pink, and her hair black and 
softly curling around her face and neck. The room in 
which she stood was neat as its keeper. The walls were 
whitewashed, and covered with prints, pictures, and some 
small tanned skins. Dried grasses and flowers filled the 
vases on the mantel. The floor was covered with a 
striped rag carpet, and in the big open fireplace a wood 
fire roared. In an opposite corner stood a modern cook- 
ing stove, the pipe passing through a hole in the wall, and 
a door led into a sleeping room adjoining. 

As her eyes swept the room they rested finally on a 
framed lithograph of the Virgin, with the Infant in her 
arms. Slowly Mary advanced, gazing on the serene 
pictured face of the mother clasping her child. Before it 
she stood staring. Suddenly her breast began to heave, 
while the big tears brimmed from her eyes and slid down 
her cheeks. 

Since you look so wise, why don’t you tell me why?’^ 
she demanded. ^‘Oh, if you have any mercy, tell me 
why!” 

Then before the steady look in the calm eyes, she hastily 
made the sign of the cross, and slipping to the floor, she 
laid her head on a chair, sobbing aloud. 



RUBEN O’KHAYAM AND THE MILK PAIL 


I 



CHAPTER II 

Ruben O’khayam anb the Milk Pail 



IMMY MALONE, carrying a shining tin milk pail, 
stepped into Casey’s saloon. 

much as wine has played the Infidel, 

And robbed me of my robe of Honor — ^well, 

I wonder what the Vinters buy 
One-half so precious as the stuff they sell.” 


Jimmy stared at the back of a man leaning against the 
bar, gazing lovingly at a glass of red wine, while he recited 
in mellow, swinging tones. Gripping the milk pail, Jimmy 
advanced a step. The man stuck a thumb in the belt of 
his Norfolk jacket, and the verses flowed on: 


“The grape that can with logic absolute 
The two and seventy jarring sects confute: 
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice 
Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute.” 


Jimmy’s mouth fell open; he slowly nodded indorsement 
of the sentiment. The man lifted his glass: 

“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend. 

Before we too into the Dust descend; 

Yesterday this Day’s Madness did prepare; 

To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair: 

Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: 

Drink! for you know not why you go nor where.” 

67 


68 


AT THE FCX)T OF THE RAINBOW 


Jimmy set the milk pail on the bar and faced the man: 
“Tore God, that’s the only sinsible word I ever heard on 
my side of the quistion in all me life. And to think that it 
should come from the mouth of a man wearing such a Go- 
to-Hell coat!” 

Jimmy shoved the milk pail in front of the stranger. 
“In the name of humanity, impty yourself of that,” he 
said. “Fill me pail with the stuff so I can take it home 
to Mary. She’s always got the best of the argumint, 
but I’m thinkin’ that would cork her. You won’t?” 
questioned Jimmy resentfully. “Kape it to yoursilf, 
thin, like you did your wine.” He pushed the bucket 
toward the barkeeper, and emptied his pocket on the 
bar. “There, Casey, you be the Sovereign Alchemist, 
and transmute that metal into Melwood pretty quick, 
for I’ve not wet me whistle in three days, and the 
belly of me is filled with burnin’ autumn leaves. Gimme 
a loving cup, and come on boys, this is on me while it 
lasts.” 

The barkeeper swept the coin into the till, picked up the 
bucket, and started back toward a beer keg. 

“Oh no you don’t!” cried Jimmy. “Come back 
here and count that ‘leaden metal,’ and then be trans- 
mutin’ it into whiskey straight, the purest gold you 
got. You don’t drown out a three-days’ thirst with 
beer. You ought to give me ’most two quarts for 
that.” 

The barkeeper was wise. He knew that what Jimmy 
started would go on with men who could pay, so he filled 
the order generously. 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 69 

Jimmy picked up the pail. He dipped a small glass in 
the liquor, and held near an ounce aloft. 

wonder what the Vinters buy 
One-half so precious as the stuff they sell?^^ 

he quoted. *^Down goes!’’ and he emptied the glass at a 
draught. Then he walked to the group at the stove, and 
began dipping a drink for each. 

When Jimmy came to a gray-haired man, with a high 
forehead and an intellectual face, he whispered: 

‘‘Take your full time. Cap. Who’s the rhymin’ in- 
kybator?” 

“Thread man, Boston,” mouthed the Captain, as he 
reached for the glass with trembling fingers. Jimmy held 
on. “Do you know that stuff he’s giving off?” The 
Captain nodded, and arose. He always declared he could 
feel it farther if he drank standing. 

“What’s his name?” whispered Jimmy, releasing the 
glass. 

“Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam,” panted the Captain, and 
was lost. Jimmy finished the round of his friends; then 
approached the bar. 

His voice was softening. “Mister Ruben O’Khayam,” 
he said, “it’s me private opinion that ye nade lace- 
trimmed pantalettes and a sash to complate your costume, 
but barrin’ clothes. I’m entangled in the thrid of your 
discourse. Bein’ a Boston man meself, it appeals to me, 
that I detict the refinemint of the East in yer voice. Now 
these, me frinds, that I’ve just been tracin’, are men of 
these parts; but we of the middle East don’t set up to 


70 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

equal the culture of the extreme East. So, Mr. O’Kha- 
yam, solely for the benefit you might be to us, Fm askin’ 
you to join me and me frinds in the momenchous initiation 
of me new milk pail.” 

Jimmy lifted a brimming glass, and offered it to the 
Thread Man. “Do you transmute?” he asked. Now i: 
the Boston man had looked Jimmy in the eye, and said “1 
do,” this story would not have been told. But he did not. 
He glanced at the milk pail, and the glass, which had 
passed through the hands of a dozen men in a little country 
saloon in the wilds of Indiana, and said : “I do not care to 
partake of further refreshment; if I can be of intellectual 
benefit, I might remain for a time.” 

For an instant Jimmy lifted the five feet ten of his height 
to six; but in another he shrank below normal. What ap- 
peared to the Thread Man to be a humble, deferential 
seeker after wisdom, led him to one of the chairs around 
the big coal base burner. The boys who knew Jimmy were 
watching the whites of his eyes, as they drank the second 
round. At this stage Jimmy was velvet. How long he re- 
mained so depended on the depth of Melwood in the milk 
pail between his knees. *He smiled winningly on the 
Thread Man. 

“Ye know. Mister O’Khayam,” he said, “at the 
present time you are located in one of the wooliest parts 
of the wild East. I don’t suppose anything woolier could 
be found on the plains of Nebraska where I am reliably in- 
formed they’ve stuck up a pole and labelled it the cintre of 
the United States. Being a thousand miles closer that 
pole than you are in Boston, naturally we come by that 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 


7 ^ 


distance closer to the great wool industry. Most of our 
wool here grows on our tongues, and we shear it by this 
transmutin’ process, concerning which you have discoursed 
so beautiful. But barrin’ the shearin’ of our wool, we are 
the mildest, most sheepish fellows you could imagine. 1 
don’t reckon now there is a man among us who could be in- 
duced to blat or to butt, under the most tryin’ circum- 
stances. My Mary’s got a little lamb, and all the rist of 
the boys are lambs. But all the lambs are waned, and 
clusterin’ round the milk pail. Ain’t that touchin’ ? 
Come on, now, Ruben, ile up and edify us some more!” 

^^On what point do you seek enlightenment?” inquired 
the Thread Man. 

Jimmy stretched his long legs in pure delight as he spat 
against the stove. 

‘‘Oh, you might loosen up on the work of a man,” he 
suggested. “These lambs of Casey’s fold may larn things 
from you to help thim in the striss of life. Now here’s 
Jones, for instance, he’s holdin’ togither a gang of sixty 
gibbering Atalyans; any wan of thim would cut his throat 
and skip in the night for a dollar, but he kapes the beast in 
thim under, and they’re gettin’ out gravel for the bed of a 
railway. Bingham there is oil. He’s punchin’ the earth 
full of wan thousand foot holes, and sendin’ off two hun- 
dred quarts of nitroglycerine at the bottom of thim, and 
pumpin’ the accumulation across continents to furnish 
folks light and hate. York here is runnin’ a field railway 
between BlufFton and Celina, so that I can get to the river 
and the resurvoir to fish without walkin’. Haines is 
bossin’ a crew of forty Canadians and he’s takin’ the tim- 


72 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


ber from the woods hereabouts, and sending it to be made 
into boats to carry stuff across sea. Meself, and me part- 
ner, Dannie Micnoun, are the lady-likest lambs in the 
bunch. We grow grub to feed folks in summer and trap 
for skins to cover ’em in winter. Corn is our great com- 
modity. Plowin’ and hoein’ it in summer, and huskin’ 
it in the fall is sich lamb-like work. But don’t mintion it 
in the same brith with tendin’ our four dozen fur traps on 
a twenty-below-zero dajj^. Freezing hands and fate, and 
failin’ into air bubbles, afid building fires to thaw out our 
frozen grub. Now here among us poor little ^ transmutin’ ’ 
lambs you come, a raging lion, ripresentin’ the cultour and 
rayfinement of the far East. By the pleats on your breast 
you show us the style. By the thrid case in your hand you 
furnish us material so that our women can tuck their petti- 
coats so fancy, and by the book in your head you teach us 
your sooperiority. By the same token, I wish I had that 
book in me head, for I could just squelch Dannie and 
Mary with it complate. Say, Mister O’Khayam, next 
time you come this way bring me a copy. I’m wantin’ it 
bad. I got what you gave off all secure, but I take it 
there’s more. No man goin’ at that clip could shut off 
with thim few lines. Do you know the rist ? ” 

The Thread Man did, and^although he was very un- 
comfortable, be did not know how to get away, so he 
recited it. The milk pail had been drained. Jimmy had al- 
most torgotten that it was a milk pail, and seemed inclined 
to resent the fact that it was empty. He beat time on the 
bottom of it, and frequently interrupted the Thread Man 
to repeat a couplet that particularly pleased him. By and 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 


73 


by he arose and began stepping ofF a slow dance to a sing- 
song repetition of lines that sounded musical to him, all the 
time marking the measures vigorously on the pail. When 
he tired of a couplet, he pounded the pail over the bar, 
stove, or chairs in encore, until the Thread Man could 
think up another to which he could dance. 

“Wine! Wine! Wine! Red Wine! 

The Nightingale cried to the rose,’' 

chanted Jimmy, thumping the pail in time, and stepping 
off the measures with feet that scarcely seemed to touch 
the floor. He flung his hat to the barkeeper, his coat on a 
chair, ruffled his fingers through his thick auburn hair, and 
holding the pail under one arm, he paused, panting for 
breath and begging for more. The Thread Man sat on the 
edge of his chair, while the eyes with which he watched 
Jimmy were beginning to fill with interest. 

“Come fill the Cup and in the fire of Spring 
Your Winter-Garment of Repentance fling. 

The bird of time has but a little way to flutter 
And the bird is on the wing.*' 

Smash came the milk pail across che bar. Hooray!” 
shouted Jimmy. ^^Beshtyet!” Bang! Bang! He was 
off. ‘^Bird ish on the wing,” he chanted, while his feet 
flew. ^‘Come fill the cup, and in the firesh of spring — 
Firesh of Spring, Bird ish on the Wing!” Between the 
music of the milk pail, the brogue of the panted verses, and 
the grace of Jimmy’s flashing feet, the Thread Man was 
almost prostrate. It suddenly came to him that here 
might be a chance to have a new experience. 


74 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“More!^’ gasped Jimmy. some more!’’ The 

Thread Man wiped his eyes. 

“Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run, 

The wine of life keeps oozing drop by drop, 

The leaves of life keep falling one by one.” 

Away went Jimmy. 

“Swate or bitter run, 

Laves of life kape falling one by one.” 

Bang! Bang! sounded a new improvisation on the badly 
^battered pail, while to a new step Jimmy danced back and 
forth the length of the saloon. At last he paused to rest a 
^second. ‘^One morel Just one more!” he begged. 

“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 

A jug of wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness. 

Oh, wilderness were Paradise enough!” 

Jimmy’s head drooped an instant. His feet slowly 
■shuffled in improvising a new step, then he moved away, 
thumping the milk pail and chanting: 

“A comple of fish poles underneath a tree, 

A bottle of Rye and Dannie beside me 
A fishing in the Wabash. 

Were the Wabash Paradise.? Hully Gee !** 

Tired out, he dropped across a chair facing the back and 
folded his arms. He regained breath to ask the Thread 
Man: ‘^Did you iver have a frind.^” 

He had reached the confidential stage. 

The Boston man was struggling to regain his dignity^ 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 


75 

He retained the impression that at the wildest of the dance 
he had yelled and patted time for Jimmy. 

‘H hope I have a host of friends/^ he said, settling his 
pleated coat. 

‘'Damn hosht!^’ said Jimmy. “Jisht in way. Now I 
got one frind, hosht all by himself. Be here pretty soon 
now. Alwaysh comesh nights like thish.’^ 

“Comes here?^’ inquired the Thread Man. “Am I to 
meet another interesting character?’^ 

“Yesh, comesh here. Comesh after me. Comesh like 
the clock sthriking twelve. DonT he, boys?’’ inquired 
Jimmy. “But he ain’t no interesting character. Jisht 
common man, Dannie is. Honest man. Never told a lie 
in his life. Yesh, he did, too. I forgot. He liesh for me.^ 
Jish liesh and liesh. Liesh to Mary. Tells her any old 
liesh to keep me out of schrape. You ever have frind 
hish up and drive ten milesh for you night like thish, and 
liesh to get you out of schrape?” 

“I never needed any one to lie and get me out of a 
scrape,” answered the Thread Man. 

Jimmy sat straight and solemnly blinked his eyes. “Gee \ 
You musht misshed mosht the fun!” he said. “Me, I ain’t 
ever misshed any. Always in schrape. But Dannie getsh 
me out. Good old Dannie. Jish like dog. Take care me 
all me life. See? Old folks come on same boat. Women 
get thick. Shettle beside. Build cabinsh together. Work 
together, and domn if they didn’t get shmall pox and die 
together. Left me and Dannie. So we work together jish 
shame, and we fallsh in love with the shame girl. Dannie 
too slow. I got her.” Jimmy wiped away large tears. 


76 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“How did you win her, Jimmy?” asked a man who re- 
membered a story. 

“How the nation did I get her?” Jimmy scratched his 
head, and appealed to the Thread Man. “Dannie besht 
man. Milesh besht man! Never lie — ’cept for me. 
Never drink — ^cept for me. Alwaysh save his money — 
’cept for me. Milesh besht man! Isn’t he besht man, 
Spooley?” 

“Ain’t it true that you served Dannie a mean little 
trick?” asked the man who remembered. 

Jimmy was not drunk enough, while the violent exercise 
of the dance had partially sobered him. He glared at the 
man: “Whatsh you talkin’ about?” he demanded. 

“I’m just asking you,” said the man, “why, if you 
played straight with Dannie about the girl, you never 
have had the face to go to confession since you married 
her.” 

“Alwaysh send my wife,” said Jimmy grandly. “ Domsh 
any woman that can’t confiss enough for two!” 

Then he hitched his chair closer to the Thread Man, and 
grew more confidential: “Shee here,” he said. “Firsht I 
see your pleated coat, didn’t like. But head’s all right. 
Great head! Sthuck on frillsh there! Want to be let in 
on something? Got enough city, clubsh, an’ all that? 
Want to taste real thing? Lesh go coon huntin’. Theysh 
tree down Canoper, jish short pleashant walk, got fify 
coons in it ! Nobody knowsh the tree but me, shee ? Been 
good to ush boys. Sat on same kind of chairs we do. 
Educate ush up lot. Know mosht that poetry till I die. 
shee? ^Wonner wash vinters buy, halfsh precious ash 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 


77 

sthufF shell/ shee? I got it! Let you in on real thing. 
Take grand big coon skinch back to Boston with you. 
Ringsh on tail. Make wife fine mufF, or fur trimmingsh. 
Good to till boysh at club about, shee?” 

‘‘Are you asking me to go on a coon hunt with you?” 
demanded the Thread Man. “When? Where?” 

“Corshally invited,” answered Jimmy. “To-morrow 
night. Canoper. Show you plashe. Bill Duke’s dogs. My 
gunsh. Moonsh shinin’. Dogs howlin’. Shnow flying! 
Fify coonsh rollin’ out one hole! Shoot all dead! Take 
your pick! Tan skin for you myself! Roaring big firesh 
warm by. Bag finesh sandwiches ever tasted. Milk pail 
pure gold drink. No stop, slop out going over bridge. 
Take jug. Big jug. Toss her up an’ let her gurgle. 
Dogsh bark. Fire pop. Guns bang. Fify coons drop. 
Boysh all go. Want to get more education. Takes cul- 
ture to get woolsh ofF. Shay, will you go?” 

“I wouldn’t miss it for a thousand dollars,” said the 
Thread Man. “ But what will I say to my house for being 
a day late?” 

“Shay gotter grippe,” suggested Jimmy. “Never too 
late to getter grippe. Will you all go, boysh?” 

There were not three men in the saloon who knew of a 
tree that had sheltered a coon that winter, but Jimmy was 
Jimmy, so he could be trusted for an expedition of that 
sort. All of them agreed to be at the saloon ready for the 
hunt at nine o’clock the next night. The Thread Man felt 
that he was going to see Life. He immediately invited the 
boys to the bar to drink to the success of the hunt. 

“You shont own coon vourself,” olFered the magnani- 


78 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

mous Jimmy. ‘^You may carrysh my gunsh, take first 
shot. First shot to Missher O’Khayam, boysh, ’member 
that. Shay, can you hit anything? Take a try now.” 
Jimmy shoved a big revolver into the hand of the Thread 
Man. ^‘Whersh target!” he demanded. 

As he turned from the bar, the milk pail which he still 
carried under his arm caught on an iron rod. Jimmy 
gave it a jerk, and ripped the rim from the bottom. 

‘‘Thish do,” he said. ‘‘Splendid marksh. Shinesh 
jish like coon’s eyesh in torch light.” 

He carried the pail to the back wall and hung it over a 
nail. The nail was straight, while the pail was flaring, so 
the pail fell. Jimmy kicked it across the room, then 
gathered it up, and drove a dent in it with his heel, that 
would hold over the nail. Then he went back to the 
Thread Man. “Theresh mark, Ruben. Blash away!” he 
said. 

The Boston man hesitated. “Whatsh the matter? 
^ansh shoot off nothing but your mouth?” demanded 
Jimmy. He caught the revolver and fired three shots so 
rapidly that the sounds came almost as one. Two bullets 
pierced the bottom of the pail, the other the side as it 
fell. 

The door opened; with the rush of cold air Jimmy 
glanced toward it, slid the revolver into his pocket, reached 
for his hat, and started in the direction of his coat. “Glad 
to see you, Micnoun,” he said. “ If you are goingsh home, 
I’ll jish ride out with you. Good-night, boysh. Don’t 
forgetsh the coon hunt.” And Jimmy was gone. 

A minute later the door opened again; this time a man 


RUBEN AND THE MILK PAIL 


79 


of almost forty stepped inside. He had a manly form, 
a manly face, was above the average in appearances, and 
spoke with a slight Scotch accent. 

Do any of ye boys happen to know what it was Jimmy 
had with him when he came in here?’^ 

A roar of laughter greeted the query. The Thread 
Man picked up the pail. As he handed it to Dannie, 
he commented: ^‘Mr. Malone said he was initiating a new 
milk pail, but I am afraid he has overdone the job.^’ 

‘‘Thank ye,’' said Dannie, and taking the battered 
thing, he went into the night. 

Jimmy was asleep when he reached the buggy. Dannie 
had long ago found it convenient to have no fence around 
his cabin. He drove to the door, dragged Jimmy from 
the buggy, and stabled the horse. By hard work he re- 
moved Jimmy’s coat and boots, laid him across the bed, 
and covered him. Then he grimly looked at the light in 
the next cabin. “Why doesna she go to bed.^” he said. 
He summoned courage, and crossing the space between 
the two buildings, he tapped on the window. “It’s me, 
Mary,” he called. “The skins are only half done, and 
Jimmy is going to help me finish. He will come over in 
the morning. Ye go to bed. Ye needna be afraid. We 
will hear ye if ye even snore.” There was no answer, 
but by a movement in the cabin Dannie knew that Mary 
was still dressed and waiting. He started back, but for an 
instant, heedless of the scurrying snow and biting cold, he 
faced the sky. 

“I wonder if ye have na found a glib tongue and light 
feet the least part o’ matrimony,” he said. “Why in 


8o 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


God’s name couldna ye have married me? I’d like to 
know why.” 

As he closed the door, the cold air aroused Jimmy. 
“Dannie,” he said, “donsh forget the milk pail. All 
’niciate good now.” 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 




\ 


CHAPTER III 

The Fifty Coons of the Canoper 

N ear noon of the following day, Jimmy opened his 
eyes and stretched himself on Dannie’s bed. It 
did not occur to him that he was sprawled across 
it so that if Dannie had any sleep that night, he had taken 
it on chairs before the fireplace. At first Jimmy decided 
that he had a bad head, and would turn over and go to 
sleep again. Then he thought of the coon hunt, and sit- 
ting on the edge of the bed he laughed, as he looked for his 
boots. 

am glad ye are feeling so fine,” said Dannie at the 
door, in a relieved voice. ‘T had a notion that ye wad be 
crosser than a badger when ye came to.” 

Jimmy laughed again. 

What’s the fun.?” inquired Dannie. 

Jimmy thought deeply a minute. Here was one in- 
stance where the truth would serve better than any inven- 
tion, so he virtuously told Dannie all about it. Dannie 
thought of the lonely little woman next door, and rebelled. 

‘^But Jimmy!” he cried, ‘‘ye canna be gone all nicht 
again. It’s too lonely fra Mary, and there’s always a 
chance I might sleep sound and wadna hear if she should 
be sick or need ye.” 

“Then she can just yell louder, or come after you, or 
83 


84 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

get well, for I am going, see? He was a thrid peddlei 
in a dinky little pleated coat, Dannie. He laid up against 
the counter with his feet crossed at a dancing-girl angle. 
But I will say for him that he was running at the mouth 
with the finest flow of language I iver heard. I learned a 
lot of it, and Cap knows the stuff", and I’m goin’ to have 
him get you the book. But, Dannie, he wouldn’t drink 
with us, but he stayed to iducate us up a little. That little 
spool man, Dannie, iducatin’ Jones of the gravel gang, and 
Bingham of the Standard, and York of the ’lectric railway, 
and Haines of the timber gang, not to mintion the cham- 
peen rat-catcher of the Wabash.” 

Jimmy hugged himself, as he rocked on the edge of the 
bed. 

“Oh, I can just see it, Dannie,” he cried. “I can see 
it now! I was pretty drunk, but I wasn’t too drunk to 
think of it, for it came to me sudden like.” 

Dannie stared at Jimmy wide-eyed, while he explained 
the details; then he too began to laugh, while the longer he 
laughed the funnier it grew. 

“I’ve got to start,” said Jimmy. “I’ve an -'wful after-* 
noon’s work. I must find him some rubber boots. He’s 
to have the inestimable privilege of carryin’ me gun, 
Dannie, and have the first shot at the coons, fifty, I’m 
thinkln’ I said. And if I don’t put some frills on his cute 
little coat I Oh, Dannie, it will break the heart of me if he 
doesn’t wear that pleated coat!” 

Dannie wiped his eyes. 

“Come on to the kitchen,” he said, “I’ve something 
ready fra ye to eat. Wash, while I dish it.” 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 85 

wish to Heaven you were a woman, Dannie,’^ said 
Jimmy. ‘'A fellow could fall in love with you, and marry 
you with some satisfaction. Crimminy, but Fm hungry ! 

Jimmy ate greedily, while Dannie set the cabin to 
rights. It lacked many feminine touches that distin- 
guished Jimmy ^s as the abode of a woman; but it was neat, 
clean, and there seemed to be a place where everything 
belonged. 

‘‘Now, Fm ofF,^’ said Jimmy, rising. “Fll take your 
gun, because I ain't goin’ to see Mary till I get back.” 

“Oh, Jimmy, dinna do that!” pleaded Dannie. “I 
want my gun. Go and get your own; tell her where ye are 
going and what ye are planning to do. She’d feel less 
lonely.” 

“I know how she would feel better than you do,” re- 
torted Jimmy. “I am not going. If you won’t give me 
your gun, Fll borrow one; or have all my fun spoiled.” 

Dannie took down the shining gun and passed it over. 
Jimmy instantly relented. He smiled a boyish smile that 
always caught Dannie in his softest spot. 

“You are the bist frind I have on ea^h, Dannie,” he 
said winsomely. “You are a man worth tying to. By 
gum, there’s nothing I woialdn’t do for you! Now go on, 
like the good fellow you are^^nd fix it up with MSry.” 

So Dannie started for the wood pile. In summer he 
could stand outside and speak through the screen. In 
winter he must enter the cabin for errands like this, and 
as Jimmy’s wood box was as heavily weighted on his mind 
as his own, there was nothing unnatural in his stamping 
snow on Jimmy’s back stoop, and calling “Open!” to Mary 


86 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

at any hour of the day he happened to be passing the wood 
pile. 

He stood at a distance, patiently waiting until a gray 
and black nut-hatch that foraged on the wood, covered all 
the new territory discovered by the last disturbance of the 
pile. From loosened bark Dannie watched the bird take 
several large white worms and a few dormant ants. As it 
flew away he gathered an armload of wood. He was very 
careful to clean his feet on the stoop, place the wood with- 
out tearing the neat covering of wall paper, and brush from 
his coat the snow and moss so that it fell in the box. He 
had heard Mary tell the careless Jimmy to do all these 
things, so Dannie knew that they saved her work. There 
was a whiteness on her face that morning that startled 
him, and long after the last particle of moss was cleaned 
from his sleeve he bent over the box trying to think of 
something to say. The cleaning took such a length of 
time that the glint of a smile crept into the grave eyes 
of the woman, while the grim line of her lips softened. 

Don’t be feeling so badly about it, Dannie,” she said. 
'H could have told you when you went after him last night 
that he would go back as soon as he wakened to-day. I 
know he is gone. I watched him lave.” 

Dannie brushed the other sleeve, on which there had 
been nothing, and answered: ‘‘Noo, dinna ye misjudge 
}:i:n, Mary. He’s goin’ to a coon hunt to-nicht. Dinna 
ye see him take my gun?” 

This evidence so bolstered Dannie that he faced Mary 
with confidence. 

There’s a travelling man frae Boston in town, Mary, 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 87 

nnd he was edifying the boys a little, and Jimmy dinna 
like it. He’s going to show him a little countty sport 
to-nicht to edify him.” 

Dannie outlined the plan of Jimmy’s campaign. De- 
spite disapproval, and a sore heart, Mary Malone was 
forced to smile — perhaps as much over Dannie’s eagerness 
in telling what was contemplated as anything. 

‘‘Why don’t you take Jimmy’s gun and go yoursilf?” 
she asked. “You haven’t had a day off since fishing was 
r/ver. 

“But I have the work to do,” replied Dannie, “and I 

couldna leave ” He stopped abruptly, but the woman 

supplied the word. 

“Why can’t you lave me, if Jimmy can ? I’m not afraid. 
The snow and the cold will furnish me protiction to-night. 
There’ll be no one to fear. Why should you do Jimmy’s 
work, and miss the sport, to guard the thing he !.ol Js so 
lightly?” 

The red flushed Dannie’s cheeks. Mary never before 
had spoken like that. He should say something for Jimmy 
quickly, and quickness was not his forte. His lips opened, 
but nothing came; for as Jimmy had boasted, Dannie never 
lied, except for him, while at such times he had careful 
preparation before he faced Mary. Now, he was over- 
taken unawares. He appeared so boyish in his confusion, 
the mother in Mary’s heart was touched. 

“I’ll till you what we’ll do, Dannie,” she said. “You 
tind the stock, and bring in wood enough so that things 
won’t be frazin’ here; and then you hitch up and I’ll go 
with you to town, and stay all night with Mr^. Dolan 


88 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


You can put the horse in my sister’s stable, and whin you 
and Jimmy get back, you’ll be tired enough that you’ll be 
glad to ride home. A visit with Katie will be good for me; 
1 have been blue the last few days, and I can see you are 
just aching to go with the boys. Isn’t that a fine plan r ” 

“I should say that is a guid plan,” answered the de- 
lighted Dannie. Anything to save Mary another night 
alone was good, and then — that coon hunt did sound allur- 
ing. 

So it happened that at nine o’clock the same night, while 
arrangements were being completed at Casey’s, Dannie 
Macnoun stepped into the group and said to the astonished 
Jimmy: “Mary wanted to come to her sister’s over nicht, 
(SO I fixed everything, and I’m going to the coon hunt, too, 
if you boys want me.” 

The crowd closed around Dannie, patted his back and 
cheered him; he was introduced to Mister O’Khayam, of 
Boston, who tried to drown the clamour enough to tell 
what his name really was, “in case of accident”; but he 
could not be heard for Jimmy yelling that a good old Irish 
name like O’Khayam could not be beaten in case of any- 
thing. Dannie hastily glanced at the Thread Man, to see 
if he wore that hated pleated coat, which was the cause of 
Jimmy’s anger. 

Then they started. Casey’s wife was to be left in charge 
of the saloon, and the Thread Man half angered Casey by 
a whispered conversation with her in a corner. Jimmy 
cut his crowd as low as he possibly could, but it numbered 
fifteen men, while no one counted the dogs. Jimmy led 
the way, the Thread Man beside him, and the crowd fol- 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 89 

lowed. The walking would be better to follow the railroad 
to the Canoper; also they could cross the railroad bridge 
over the river and save quite a distance. 

Jimmy helped the Thread Man into a borrowed over- 
coat and mittens, loaded him with a twelve-pound gun, 
and they started. Jimmy carried a torch, but as torch 
bearer he was a failure, for he had a careless way of turning 
it and flashing it into people's faces that compelled them 
to jump to save themselves. Where the track lay clear and 
straight ahead the torch seemed to light it like day; but in 
dark places it was suddenly lowered or wavering somewhere 
else. It was through this carelessness of Jimmy’s that at 
the first cattle-guard north of the village the torch flickered 
backward, ostensibly to locate Dannie, and the Thread Man 
went crashing between the iron bars, and across the gun. 
Instantly Jimmy sprawled on top of him, and the next two 
men followed. The torch plowed into the snow and went 
out, while the yells of Jimmy alarmed the adjoining village. 

He was hurt the worst of all, and the busiest getting in 
marching order again. ‘‘Howly smoke!” he panted. ‘‘1 
was havin’ the time of me life, and plumb forgot that cow- 
kitcher. Thought it was a quarter of a mile away yet. 
And liked to killed meself with me carelessness. But 
that’s always the way in true sport. You got to take the 
knocks with the fun.” No one asked the Thread Man if he 
vrere hurt, and he did not like to seem unmanly by men- 
tioning a skinned shin, when Jimmy Malone seemed to 
have bursted most of his inside; so he shouldered his gun 
and limped along, now slightly in the rear of Jimmy. The 
river bridge was a serious matter with its icy coat, and 


•90 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


•danger of specials, so the torches suddenly flashed from all 
;sides; while the Thread Man gave thanks for Dannie Mac- 
noun, who reached him a steady hand across the ties. 

The walk was three miles; the railroad lay at an eleva- 
tion of from twenty to thirty feet beside the river and 
through the bottom land. The Boston man would have 
been thankful for the light, but as the last man stepped 
from the ties of the bridge all the torches went out save 
one. Jimmy explained they were forced to save them so 
that they could see where the coons fell when they began 
to shake the trees. 

Beside the water tank, and where the embankment was 
twenty feet sheer, Jimmy was cautioning the Boston man 
to look out, when the hunter next behind him gave a wild 
yell and plunged into his back. Jimmy’s grab for him 
seemed more a push than a pull, so the three rolled to the 
bottom, and halfway across the flooded ditch. The ditch 
was frozen over, but they were shaken, and smothered in 
snow. The whole howling party came streaming down the 
embankment. Dannie held aloft his torch and discovered 
Jimmy lying face down in a drift, making no eflfort to rise, 
while the Thread Man feebly tugged at him and implored 
some one to come and help get Malone out. Then Dan- 
nie slunk behind the others and yelled until he was tired. 
By and by Jimmy allowed himself to be dragged out 

^‘Who the thunder was that come buttin’ into us.^” he 
blustered. ^T don’t allow no man to butt into me when 
I’m on an imbankmint. Send the fool here tillT kill him.” 

The Thread Man was pulling at Jimmy’s arm. Don’t 
mind, Jimmy,” he gasped. ‘Ht was an accident! The 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 91 

man slipped. This is an awful place. I will be glad when 
we reach the woods. Til feel safer with ground that^s 
holding up trees under my feet. Come on, now! Are we 
not almost there ? Should we not keep quiet from now on? 
Will we not alarm the coons ? ” 

^‘Sure,’^ said Jimmy. ‘‘Boys, don’t hollo so much. 
Every blamed coon will be scared out of its hollow!” 

“Amazing!” said the Thread Man. “How clever! 
Came on the spur of the moment. I must remember that 
to tell the Club. Do not hollo! Scare the coon out of its 
hollow!” 

“Oh, I do miles of things like that,” said Jimmy dryly, 
“and mostly I have to do thim before the spur of the mo- 
ment; because our moments go so domn fast out here 
mighty few of thim have time to grow their spurs before 
they are gone. Here’s where we turn. Now, boysj 
they’ve been trying to get this biler across the tracks here, 
and they’ve broke the ice. The water in this ditch is three 
feet deep and freezing cold. They’ve stuck getting the 
biler over, but I wonder if we can’t cross on it, and hit the 
wood beyond. Maybe we can walk it.” 

Jimmy set a foot on the ice-covered boiler, howled, and 
fell back on the men behind him. “ Jimminy crickets, we 
niver can do that!” he yelled. “It’s a glare of ice and 
roundin’. Let’s crawl through it! The rist of you can get 
through if I can. We’d better take off our overcoats, to 
make us smaller. We can roll thim into a bundle, and the 
last man can pull it through behind him.” 

Jimmy threw off his coat and entered the wrecked oil 
engine. He knew how to hobble through on his toes, but 


92 . AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

the pleated coat of the Boston man, who tried to pass 
through by stooping, suffered almost all Jimmy had in 
store for it. Jimmy came out all right with a shout. The 
Thread Man did not step half so far, and landed knee deep 
in the icy oil-covered slush of the ditch. That threw him 
off his balance, and Jimmy let him sink one arm in the pool, 
then grabbed him, and scooped oil on his back with the 
other hand while he pulled. During the excitement and 
struggles of Jimmy and the Thread Man, the remainder of 
the party jumped the ditch and gathered around, rubbing 
soot and oil on the Boston man, who did not see how they 
crossed. 

Jimmy continued to decorate the hated coat industri- 
ously. The dogs leaped the ditch, and the instant they 
reached the woods broke away baying over fresh tracks. 
The men yelled like mad. Jimmy struggled into his over- 
coat, helped the almost insane Boston man into his, and 
then they hurried after the dogs. 

The scent was so new and clear the dogs raged. The 
Thread Man was wild, Jimmy was wilder, and the thirteen 
contributed all they could for laughing. Dannie forgot to 
be ashamed of himself and followed the example of the 
crowd. Deeper and deeper into the wild, swampy Canoper 
led the chase. 

With a man on either side to guide him into the deepest 
holes and to shove him into bushy thickets, the skinned, 
soot-covered, oil-coated Boston man toiled and sweated. 
He had no time to think, the excitement was so intense. 
He scrambled out of each pitfall set for him, and plunged 
into the next with such uncomplaining bravery that Dan- 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 93 

nie very shortly grew ashamed, and crowding beside him 
he took the heavy gun and tried to protect him all he 
could without falling under the eye of Jimmy, who was 
keeping close watch. 

Wild yelling told that the dogs had treed, and with shak- 
ing fingers the Thread Man pulled ofF the big mittens he 
w«re and tried to lift the gun. Jimmy flashed a torch, and 
sure enough, in the top of a medium hickory tree, the light 
was reflected in streams from the big shining eyes of a coon. 
‘‘Treed!’’ yelled Jimmy frantically. “Treed! and big as 
an elephant. Company’s first shot. Here, Mister O’Kha- 
yam, here’s a good place to stand. Gee, what luck! Coon 
in sight first thing, and Mellen’s food coon at that! Shoot, 
Mister O’Khayam, shoot!” 

The Thread Man lifted the wavering gun, but it was no 
use. 

“Tell you what, Ruben,” said Jimmy. “You are too 
tired to shoot straight. Let’s take a rist, and ate our 
lunch. Then we’ll cut down the tree and let the dogs get 
cooney. That way there won’t be any shot marks in his 
skin. What do you say? Is that a good plan?” 

They all said that was the proper course, so they built a 
fire, and placed the Thread Man where he could see the 
gleaming eyes of the frightened coon, and where all of them 
could feast on his soot and oil-covered face. Then they 
opened the bag and passed the sandwiches. 

“I really am hungry,” said the weary Thread Man, 
biting into his with great relish. His jaws moved once or 
twice experimentally, then he lifted his handkerchief to his 
lips 


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


94 

‘T wish ’twas as big as me head/’ said Jimmy, taking a 
great bite, and then he began to curse uproariously. 

*^What ails the things?” inquired Dannie, ejecting 
a mouthful. Then all of them began to eject birdshot, and 
started an inquest simultaneously. Jimmy raged. He 
swore some enemy had secured the bag and ruined the 
feast; but the boys who knew him laughed until it seemed 
the Thread Man must suspect. He indignantly declared 
it was a dirty trick. By the light of the fire he knelt and 
tried to free one of the sandwiches from its sprinkling of 
birdshot, so that it would be fit for poor Jimmy, who had 
worked so hard to lead them there and tree the coon. For 
the first time Jimmy seemed thoughtful. 

But the sight of the Thread Man was too tempting, so 
a second later he was thrusting an ax into the hands ac- 
customed to handling a thread case. Then he led the 
way to the tree, and began chopping at the green hickor)^ 
It was slow work, and soon the perspiration streamed. 
Jimmy pulled off his coat and threw it aside. He assisted 
the Thread Man out of his and tossed it behind him. The 
coat alighted in the fire, and was badly scorched before 
it was rescued. The Thread Man was ^^game.” Fifty 
times that night it had been said that he was to have the 
first coon, of course he should work for it. So with the 
ax with which Casey chopped ice for his refrigerator, 
the Boston man hacked the hickory, and swore to him- 
self because he could not make the chips fly as Jimmy 
did. 

‘Hvrybody clear out!” cried Jimmy. ‘‘Number one 
Is coming down. Get the coffee sack ready. Baste 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 95 

cooney over the head and shove him in before the dogs 
tear the skin. We want a dandy big pelt out of this ! 

There was a crack, then the tree fell with a crash. All 
the Boston man could see was that from a tumbled pile of 
branches, dogs, and men, some one at last stepped back, 
gripping a sack, and cried: ‘'Got it all right, and it’s a 
buster.” 

“Now for the other forty-nine!” shouted Jimmy, strug- 
gling into his coat. 

“Come on, boys, we must secure a coon for every one,” 
cried the Thread Man, heartily as any member of the 
party might have said it. But the boys suddenly grew 
tired. They did not want any coons, so after some per- 
suasion the party agreed to return to Casey’s to warm up. 
The Thread Man put on his scorched, besooted, oil- 
smeared coat, the overcoat which had been lent him, and 
shouldered the gun. Jimmy hesitated. But Dannie came 
up to the Boston man and said : 

“There’s a place in my shoulder that gun juist fits, and 
it’s lonesome without it. Pass it over.” 

It was Dannie, too, tvho whispered to the Thread Man 
to keep close behind him. When the party trudged back 
to Casey’s it was so surprising how much better Dannie 
knew the way going back than Jimmy had known it com- 
ing, that the Thread Man was led to remark about it. 
But Jimmy explained that after one had been out a few 
hours his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he 
could see better. That was reasonable, for the Thread 
Man knew it was true in his own experience. 

So the^T' returned to Casey’s, where they found a long 


96 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

table set, and a steaming big oyster supper ready for them; 
which explained the Thread Man’s conference with Mrs, 
Casey. He took the head of the table, with his back to the 
wall, and placed Jimmy on his right and Dannie on his 
left. 

Mrs. Casey had furnished soap and towels, so at least 
part of the Boston man’s face was clean. The oysters 
were fine, and well cooked. The Thread Man recited 
more of the wonderful poem for Dannie’s benefit, and told 
jokes and stories. They laughed until they were so weak 
they could only pound the table to indicate how funny if 
was. As they were making a movement to rise, Casey 
proposed that he bring in the coon, so all of them could 
see their night’s work. The Thread Man applauded; 
Casey brought in the bag and shook it bottom up over the 
floor. Therefrom issued a poor, frightened, maltreated 
little pet coon of Mrs. Casey’s. It dexterously ran up 
Casey’s trouser leg and hid its nose in his collar, its chain 
dragging behind. That was so funny the boys doubled 
over the table, and laughed and screamed until a sudden 
movement brought them to their senses. 

The Thread Man arose, his eyes no laughing matter. 
He gripped his chair back, and leaned toward Jimmy. 
^‘You walked me into that cattle-guard on purpose!” he 
cried. 

Silence. 

^'You led me into that boiler, and knew about the oil at 
the end!” 

No answer. 

‘Wou mauled me all over the woods, loaded those sand- 


THE FIFTY COONS OF THE CANOPER 97 

wiches yourself, and sored me for a week trying to chop 

down a tree with a pet coon chained in it! You 1 

You ! What had I done to you?’’ 

‘‘You wouldn’t drink with me, and I didn’t like the 
domned, dinky, little pleated coat you wore,” answered 
Jimmy. 

One instant amazement held sway on the Thread Man’s 
face; the next, “And damned if I like yours!” he cried, 
and catching up a bowl half filled with broth he flung it 
squarely into Jimmy’s face. 

Jimmy, with an oath, sprang at the Boston man. Once 
in his life Dannie was quick. He caught the uplifted fist 
in a grip that mastered Jimmy because of his use of 
whiskey and suffering from rheumatism. 

“Steady — Jimmy, wait a minute,” panted Dannie. 
“This mon is na even wi’ ye yet. When every muscle in 
your body is strained, and every inch of it bruised, and 
ye are daubed wi’ soot, and bedraggled in oil, and he’s 
made ye the laughin’ stock fra strangers by the hour, ye 
will be juist even, and ready to talk to him. Every minute 
of the nicht he’s proved himself a mon, and right now he’s 
showed he’s na coward. It’s up to ye, Jimmy. Do it 
royal. Be as much of a mon as he is. Say ye are sorry!” 

One tense instant the two friends faced each other. 

Then Jimmy’s fist unclenched, and his arms dropped. 
Dannie stepped back, trying to breathe lightly. The 
Issue was between Jimmy and the Thread Man. 

“I am sorry,” said Jimmy. “I carried my objictions 
to your wardrobe too far. If you’ll let me. I’ll clean you 
up. If you’ll take it, I’ll raise you the price of a new coat. 


98 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

but ril be domn if I’ll hilp put such a man as you are into 
another of the fiminine ginder.” 

The Thread Man laughed, and shook Jimmy’s hand; and 
then Jimmy proved why every one liked him by turning 
to Dannie and taking his hand. “Thank you, Dannie,” 
he said. “You sure hilped me to mesilf that time. If I’d 
hit him, I couldn’t have hild up me head in the morning.” 


WHEN THE KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK 
BASS CAME HOME 



CHAPTER IV 


When the Kingfisher and the Black Bass Came 
Home 

C RIMMINY, but you are slow/’ Jimmy made the 
statement, not as one voices a newly discovered 
fact, but as one iterates a time-worn truism. He 
sat on a girder of the Limberlost bridge, and scraped the 
black muck from his boots in a heap. Then he twisted 
a stick into the top of his rat sack, preparatory to the 
walk home. 

The ice had broken on the river, so now the partners 
had to separate at the bridge, each following his own line 
of traps to the last one; then return to the bridge so that 
Jimmy could cross to reach home. Jimmy was always 
waiting, after the river opened. It was a remarkable fact 
to him that as soon as the ice was gone his luck failed him. 
This evening the bag at his feet proved by its bulk that 
it contained about one-half the rats Dannie carried. 

must set my traps in my own way,” answered Dannie 
calmly. ^Hf I stuck them into the water ony way and 
went on, so would the rats. A trap is no a trap unless it 
is concealed.” 

^‘That’s it! Go on and give me a sarmonl” urged 
Jimmy derisively. “Who’s got the bulk of the rats all 
winter? The truth is that my side of the river is the best 

lOI 


102 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


catching in the extrame cold, but you get the most after 
the thaws begin to come. The rats seem to have a lot 
of burrows to shift around among. One time Fm ahead; 
the nixt day they go to you: but it don’t mane that 
you are any better trapper than I am. I only got 
sivin to-night. That’s a sweet day’s work for a whole 
man. Fifteen cints apace for sivin rats. I’ve a big 
notion to cut the rat business, and compete with Rocky in 
ile.” 

Dannie laughed. ‘‘Let’s hurry home, and get the 
skinning over before nicht,” he said. “I think the days 
are growing a little longer. I seem to scent spring in the 
air to-day.” 

Jimmy looked at Dannie’s mud-covered, wet clothing, 
his blood-stained mittens and coat back, and the dripping 
bag he had rested on the bridge. “I’ve got some music 
in me head, and some action in me feet,” he said, “but I 
guess God forgot to put much sintimint into me heart. 
The breath of spring niver got so strong with me that I 
could smell it above a bag of muskrats and me trappin' 
clothes.” 

He arose, swung his bag to his shoulder, then together 
they left the bridge, and took the road leading to Rainbow 
Bottom. It was late February. The air was raw; the 
walking heavy. Jimmy saw little around him, while there 
was little Dannie did not see. To him, his farm, the river, 
and the cabins in Rainbow Bot'-om meant all of life, for all 
he loved on earth was there. But loafing in town on 
rainy days, when Dannie sat with a book; hearing the 
talk at Casey’s, at the hotel, and on the streets, had given 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS 103 

Jimmy different views; making his lot seem paltry com' 
pared with that of men who had greater possessions. 

On days when Jimmy’s luck was bad, or whejn a fever 
of thirst burned him, he usually discoursed on some sort 
of intangible experience that men had, which he called 
^^seeing life.” His rat bag was unusually light that night. 
In a vague way he connected it with the breaking up of the 
ice. When the river lay solid he mostly carried home 
twice as many rats as Dannie; because he had patronized 
Dannie all his life, it fretted Jimmy to be behind even on^" 
day. 

‘‘Begorra, I get tired of this!” he said. ‘^Always and 
foriver the same thing. I kape goin’ this trail so much 
that IVe got a speakin’ acquaintance with meself. Some 
of these days Tm goin’ to take a trip, for a little change. 
Fd like to see Chicago, and as far west as the middle, 
anyway.” 

^^Well, ye canna go,” said Dannie. ‘^Ye mind the 
time when ye were married, and I thought Fd be best 
away, so I packed my trunk When ye and Mary caught 
me, ye got mad as fire, and she cried, and I had to stay. 
Juist ye try going, and Fll get mad, and Mary will cry, 
and ye will stay at home, juist like I did.” 

There was a fear deep in Dannie’s soul that some day 
Jimmy would fulfill this long-time threat of his. 

dinna think there is ony place in all the world so 
guid as the place ye own,” Dannie said earnestly. 
dinna care a penny what anybody else has, probably they 
have what they want. What I want is the land that my 
feyther owned before me, and the house that my mither 


^04 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

kept. And they’ll have to show me the place they call 
Eden, before I’ll give up that it beats Rainbow Bottom — 
summer, autumn, or winter. I dinna give twa hoops fra 
the palaces men rig up, or the thing they call ‘landscape 
gardening.’ When did me® ever compete with the work 
of God.? All the men that have peopled the earth since 
time began could have their brains rolled into one, and 
he would stand helpless before the anatomy of one of the 
rats in these bags. The thing God does is guid enough 
fra me.” 

“Why don’t you take a short cut to the naatin’-house.?” 
inquired Jimmy. 

“Because I wad have nothing to say when I got there,” 
retorted Dannie. “I’ve a meetin’-hoyse of my ain, and it 
juist suits me; and I’ve a God, too, and whether He is 
spirit or essence. He suits me. I dinna want to be held to 
sharper account than He faces me up to, when I hold 
communion with mesel’. I dinna want any better meetin’- 
house than Rainbow Bottom. I dinna care for better 
talkin’ than the ‘tongues in the trees’; sounder preachin’ 
than the ‘sermons in the stones’; finer readin’ than the 
books in the river; no, nor better music than the choir o’ 
the birds, each singin’ in its ain way fit to burst its leetle 
throat about the mate it won, the nest they built, and the 
babies they are raising. That’s what I call the music o’ 
God, spontaneous, and the soul o’ joy. Give it to me 
every time compared with notes frae a book. And all the 
fine places that the wealth o’ men ever evolved winna be- 
gin to compare with the work o’ God, such as I’ve got 
around me every day.” 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS 105 

‘^But I want to see life/^ wailed Jimmy. 

‘‘Then open your eyes, mon, fra the love o’ mercy, open 
your eyes! There’s life sailing over your heid in that flock 
o’ crows going home fra the night. Why dinna ye, or 
some other mon, fly like that? There’s living roots, and 
seeds, and insects, and worms by the million wherever ye 
are setting foot. Why dinna ye creep into the earth and 
sleep through the winter, and renew your life with the 
spring? The trouble with ye, Jimmy, is that ye’ve always 
followed your heels. If ye’d stayed by the books, as I 
begged ye, there now would be that in your heid that would 
teach ye that the old story of the Rainbow is true. There 
is a pot of gold, of the purest gold ever smelted, at its foot, 
and we’ve been born and own a good living richt there. 
An’ the gold is there; that I know, wealth to shame any 
bilious millionaire, and both of us missing the pot when we 
hold the location. Ye’ve the first chance, mon, fra in your 
life is the great prize mine will forever lack. I canna get 
to the bottom of the pot, but I’m going to come close to 
as I can; and as for ye, empty it! Take it all! It’s yours! 
It’s fra the mon who finds it, and we own the location.” 

“Aha! ‘We own the location,”’ repeated Jimmy. “I 
should say we do! Behold our hotbed of riches! I often 
lay awake nights thinkin’ about my attachmint to the place: 

“How dear to me heart are the scanes of me childhood, 

Fondly gaze on the cabin where Ym doomed to dwell, 

Those chicken-coop, thim pig-pen, these highly piled-wood 
Around which Fve always raised helL'* 

Jfmmy turned in at his own gate, while Dannie passed 
to the cabin beyond. He entered, set the dripping rat 


io6 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


bag in a tub, raked open the buried fire and threw on a log. 
He always ate at Jimmy’s when Jimmy was at home, so 
there was no supper to get. He went to the barn, wading 
mud ankle deep, fed and bedded his horses; then entered 
Jimmy’s barn, and completed his work up to milking. 
Jimmy came out with a pail having a very large hole in the 
bottom covered with dried dough. He looked at it dis- 
approvingly. 

“I bought a new milk pail the other night. I know I 
did,” he said. “Mary was kicking for one a month ago, 
so I went after it the night I met Ruben O’Khayam. 
Now what the nation did I do with that pail?” 

“I have wondered mysel’,” answered Dannie, as he 
lifted a strangely shaped object from a barrel. “^This is 
what ye brought home, Jimmy.” 

Jimmy stared at the shining, battered, bullet-punctured 
pail in amazement. Slowly he turned it over, around, and 
then he lifted bewildered eyes to Dannie. 

“Are you foolin’?” he asked. “Did I bring that thing 
home in that shape?” 

“Honest!” said Dannie. 

“I remember buyin’ it,” said Jimmy slowly. “I re- 
member hanging on to it like grim death, for it was the wan 

excuse I had for goin’, but I don’t just recall how !’’ 

Slowly he revolved the pail; suddenly he rolled over on the 
hay and laughed until he was tired. Then he sat up and 
wiped his eyes. “Great day! What a lot of fun I must 
have had before I got that milk pail into that shape,” he 
said. “Domned if I don’t go straight to town and buy 
another one; yes, bedad! I’ll buy two!” 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS 107 

In the meantime Dannie milked, fed and watered the 
cattle, so Jimmy picked up the pail of milk and carried it to 
the cabin. Dannie came past the wood pile and brought 
in a heavy load. Then they washed, and sat down to 
supper. 

‘'Seems to me you look unusually perky,^’ said Jimmy to 
his wife. “Had any good news?’’ 

“Splendid!” said Mary. “I am so glad! And I don’t 
belave you two stupids know!” 

“You niver can tell by lookin’ at me what I know,*' 
said Jimmy. “Whin I look the wisest I know the least. 
Whin I look like a fool. I’m thinkin’ like a philosopher.” 

“Give it up,” said Dannie promptly. You would not 
catch him knowing anything it would make Mary’s eyes 
shine to tell. 

“Sap is running!” announced Mary. 

“The divil you say!” cried Jimmy. 

“It is!” beamed Mary. “It will be full in three days. 
Didn’t you notice how green the maples are ? I took a walk 
down to the bottom to-day. I niver in all my life was so 
tired of winter. The first thing I saw was that wet look 
on the maples, while on the low land, where they are 
sheltered yet in the sun, several of them are oozing!” 

“Grand!” cried Dannie. “Jimmy, we must peel those 
rats in a hurry, and then clean the spiles, and see how mony 
new ones we will need. To-morrow we must come frae 
the traps early enough to look up our troughs.” 

“Oh, for pity sake, don’t pile up work enough to kill a 
horse,” cried Jimmy. “Ain’t you ever happy unless you 
are workin’?” 


K)8 at the foot of the rainbow 


‘‘Yes/^ said Dannie. ‘^Sometimes I find a book that 
suits me; sometimes the fish bite, and sometimes it^s in the 
air.’^ 

^^Git the condinser,^’ said Jimmy. ^‘And that reminds 
me, Mary, Dannie smelled spring in the air, to-day.^^ 

^^Well, what if he did?’^ questioned Mary. ‘‘I can al- 
ways smell it. A little later, when the sap begins to run in 
all the trees, when the buds swell, and the ice breaks up, 
and the wild ge^e go over, I always scent spring; and 
when the catkins bloom, then it comes strong so I just love 
it. Spring is my happiest time. I have more news, too!’’ 

‘'Don’t spring so much at wance!” cried Jimmy, “you’ll 
<;poll my appetite.” 

“I guess there’s no danger,” replied Mary. 

“There is,” said Jimmy. “At laste in the fore siction. 
*Appe’ is Frinch, and manes atin’. ‘Tite’ is Irish, and 
manes drinkin’. Appetite manes atin’ and drinkin’ to- 
gither. ‘Tite’ manes drinkin’ without atin’, see.^” 

“I was just goin’ to mintion it meself,” said Mary, “it’s 
where you come in strong. There’s no danger of anybody 
spoilin’ your drinkin’, if they could interfere with your 
atin’. You guess, Dannie.” 

“The dominick hen is setting,” ventured Dannie. 
Mary’s face showed that he had blundered on the truth. 

“She is,” affirmed Mary, pouring the tea, “but it is real 
mane of you to guess it, when I’ve so few new things to tell. 
She has been setting two days, and she went over fiftane 
fresh eggs to-day. In just twinty-one days I will have 
fiftane the cunningest little chickens you ever saw, and 
there is more yet. I found the nest of the gray goose, with 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS 109 

three big eggs in it, all buried in feathers. She must have 
stripped her breast almost bare to cover them. And Fm 
the happiest Fve been all winter. I hate the long, lonely, 
shut-in-time. I am going on a delightful spree. I shall 
help boil down sugar-water and make maple syrup. I 
shall set bins, and geese, and turkeys. I shall make soap, 
and clane house, and plant seed, and all my flowers will 
bloom again. Goody for summer; it can’t come too soon 
to suit me.” 

i ‘‘Lord! I don’t see what there is in any of those 
things,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got just one sign of spring 
that interests me. If you want to see me caper, somebody 
mention to me the first rattle of the Kingfisher. Whin he 
comes home, and house cleans in his tunnel in the embank- 
ment, and takes possession of his stump in the river, 
the nixt day the Black Bass locates in the deep water 
below the shoals. Thin you can count me in. There is 
where business begins for Jimmy boy. I am going to have 
that Bass this summer, if I don’t plant an acre of corn.” 

“I bet you that’s the truth!” said Mary, so quickly that 
both men laughed. 

v“Ahem!” said Dannie. “Then I will have to do my 
plowing by a heidlicht, so I can fish as much as ye do in the 
day time. I hereby make, enact, and enforce a law that 
neither of us is to fish in the Bass hole when the other is not 
there to fish also. That is the only fair way. I’ve as much 
richt to him as ye have.” 

“Of course!” said Mary. “That is a fair way. Make 
that a rule, and kape it. If you both fish at once, it’s got 
to be a fair catch for the one that lands it; but whoever 


no AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


catches it, I shall ate it, so it doesn’t much matter to 
me. 

“You ate it!” howled Jimmy. “I guess not. Not a 
taste of that fish, when he’s teased me for years? He’s as 
big as a whale. If Jonah had had the good fortune to fall 
in the Wabash, and to be swallowed by the Black Bass, he 
could have ridden from Peru to Terre Haute, and suffered 
no inconvenience makin’ a landin’. Sivin pounds he’ll 
weigh by the steelyard. I’ll wager you.” 

“Five, Jimmy, five,” corrected Dannie. 

“Sivin!” shouted Jimmy. “Ain’t I hooked him re- 
peated? Ain’t I seen him broadside? I wonder if thim 
heavy lines of mine have gone and rotted.” 

He left his supper, carrying his chair to stand on while 
he rummaged the top shelf of the cupboard for his box of 
tackle. He knocked a bottle from the shelf, but caught 
it in mid-air with a dexterous sweep. 

“Spirits are movin’,” cried Jimmy, as he restored the 
camphor to its place. He carried the box to the window; 
becoming so deeply engrossed in its contents that he did 
not notice when Dannie picked up his rat bag telling him to 
come help skin their day’s catch. Mary tried to send him, 
but he was going in a minute. So the minutes stretched 
and stretched, until both of them were surprised when the 
door opened to admit Dannie with an armload of spiles, 
the rat-skinning being finished. 

Jimmy unwound lines, sharpened hooks, and talked fish; 
while Dannie and Mary cleaned the spiles, figured on how 
many new elders must be cut and prepared for more on the 
morrow; and planned the sugar niaking. 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS iii 


When it was bedtime, Dannie went home. Jimmy and 
Mary closed their cabin for the night. Mary stepped to 
the window that looked toward Dannie’s to see if his light 
were burning. It was, for clear in its rays stood Dannie, 
stripping yard after yard of fine line through his fingers, 
to carefully test it. Jimmy came and stood beside 
her. 

‘‘Why, the domn son of the Rainbow,” he cried, “if he 
ain’t trying his fish lines!” 

The next day Mary Malone was rejoicing when the 
men returned from trapping, to clean the sugar-water 
troughs. There had been a robin at the well. 

“Kape your eye on Mary,” advised Jimmy. “If she 
ain’t watched close from this time on, she’ll be settin’ bins 
in snowdrifts, or pouring biling water on the daffodils to 
sprout them.” 

On the first of March, five killdeers flew over; while 
half an hour later one straggler crying piteously followed 
in their wake. 

“Oh, the mane things!” Mary almost sobbed. “Why 
don’t they wait for it ? ” 

She stood beside a big kettle of boiling syrup at the 
sugar camp, almost helpless in Jimmy’s boots and Dan- 
nie’s great coat. Jimmy cut and carried logs, while Dan- 
nie hauled sap. All the woods were stirred by the smell of 
the curling smoke and the odour of the boiling sap, fine 
as the fragrance of flowers. Bright-eyed deer mice peeped 
at her from under old logs, the chickadees, nut-hatches, 
and jays started an investigating committee to learn if 
anything interesting to them were occurring. One gayly 


1 12 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


dressed little sap-sucker hammered a tree close by and 
scolded vigorously. 

“Right you are!” said Mary. “It’s a pity you’re not 
big enough to drive us from the woods, for into one kittle 
goes enough sap to last you a lifetime.” 

The squirrels resented the intrusion, racing among the 
branches overhead, barking loud defiance. At night the 
three rode home on the sled, with the syrup jugs beside 
them. Mary’s apron was filled with big green rolls of 
pungent woolly-dog moss. 

Jimmy built the fires, Dannie fed the stock, while Mary 
cooked the supper. When it was over, the men warmed 
chilled feet and fingers at the fire. Mary poured some 
syrup into a kettle, and just as it “sugared off” she dipped 
Streams of the amber sweetness into cups of water. All 
of them ate it like big children, and oh, but it was good! 
Two days more of the same work ended sugar making, but 
for several days following Dannie gathered the rapidly 
diminishing sap for the vinegar barrel. 

Then there were more hens ready to set, water must be 
poured hourly into the ash hopper to start the flow of lye 
for soap making, while the smoke house must be made 
ready to cure the hams and pickled meats, so that they 
would keep during warm weather. The bluebells were 
pushing through the sod in a race with the Easter and 
star flowers. One morning Mary aroused Jimmy with a 
pull at his arm. 

“Jimmy, Jimmy,” she cried. “Wake up!” 

“Do you mane ‘wake up’ or get up?” asked Jimmy 
sleepily. 


KINGFISHER AND THE BLACK BASS 113 

Both/’ cried Mary. '‘The larks are here ! ” 

A little later Jimmy shouted from the back door to the 
barn : " Dannie, do you hear the larks ? ” 

"Ye bet I do,” answered Dannie. "Heard ane goin’ 
over in the nicht. How long is it now till the Kingfisher 
comes ? ” 

"Only a short time,” said Jimmy. "If only these 
March storms would let up ’stid of down! He can’t come 
until he can fish, you know. He’s got to have crabs and 
minnies to live on.” 

A few days later the green hylas began to pipe in the 
swamps, the bullfrogs drummed among the pools in the 
bottom, the doves cooed in the thickets, while the breath 
of spring was in the nostrils of all creation, for the wind 
was heavy with the pungent odour of catkin pollen. The 
Bpring flowers were two inches high. The peonies and 
rhubarb were pushing bright yellow and red cones through 
the earth. The old gander, leading his flock beside 
the Wabash, had hailed passing flocks bound north- 
ward until he was hoarse. The Brahma rooster had 
threshed the yellow dorking so completely he took refuge 
under the pig pen, not daring to stick out his unprotected 
head. 

The doors stood open at supper time. Dannie stayed 
up late, mending and oiling the harness. Jimmy sat close 
cleaning his gun, for to his mortification he had that day 
missed killing a crow that stole from the ash hopper the 
egg with which Mary tested the strength of the lye. In a 
basket behind the kitchen stove fifteen newly hatched 
yellow chickens, with brown stripes on their backs, were 


1 14 AT THE ¥00T OF THE RAINBOW 

peeping and nestling; while on wing the killdeers cried 
half the night. 

At two o’clock in the morning came a tap on the Ma- 
lones’ bedroom window. 

“Dannie?” questioned Mary, half startled. 

“Tell Jimmy!” cried Dannie’s breathless voice outside. 
*‘TelI him the Kingfisher has juist struck the river!” 
Jimmy sat straight up in bed. 

“Then glory be!” he cried. “To-morrow the Black 
Bass comes home!” 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 
IN THE SKY 



CHAPTER V 

When the Rainbow Set Its Arch in the Sky 


W HERE did Jimmy go?” asked Mary. 

Jimmy had been up in time to feed the chick" 
ens and carry in the milk, but he disappeared 
shortly after breakfast. 

Dannie almost blushed as he answered: “He went to 
take a peep at the river. It’s going down fast. When it 
settles to the regular cjiannel, spawning wiH be over and 
the fish will come back to their old places. We figure that 
the Black Bass will be home to-day.” 

“When you go digging for bait,” said Mary,'*‘I wonder 
if the two of you could make it convanient to spade an 
onion bed. If I had it spaded I could stick the sets me-> 
silf.” 

“Now, that amna fair, Mary,” said Dannie. “We 
never went fishing till the garden was made, and the crops 
at least wouldna suffer. We’ll make the beds, of course, 
julst as soon as they can be spaded, and plant the seed, 
too.” 


“I want to plant the seeds mesilf,” said Mary. 

“And we dinna want ye should,” replied Dannie. “All 
we want ye to do is to boss.” 

“ But I’m going to do the planting mesilf.” Mary was 
emphatic. “It will be good for me to be in the sunshine. 


ii8 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


I so enjoy working in the dirt, that for a little while Fm 
happy/’ 

ye want to put the onions in the highest place, I 
should think I could spade ane bed now, and enough fra 
lettuce and radishes.” 

Dannie went after a spade. Mary Malone laughed 
softly when she saw that he also carried an old tin can. 
He tested the earth in several places, and then called tc 
her: 

^‘All right, Mary! Ground in prime shape. Turns up 
dry and mellow. We will have the garden started in no 
time.” 

He had spaded only a minute when Mary saw him run 
past the window, leap the fence, and go hurrying down the 
path to the river. She went to the door. At the head 
of the lane stood Jimmy, waving his hat, and the fresh 
morning air carried his cry clearly: ^‘Gee, Dannie! Come 
hear him splash!” 

Just why that cry, coming with the sight of Dannie 
Macnoun racing toward the river, his spade lying on the 
upturned earth of her scarcely begun onion bed, should 
have made her angry, it would be difficult to explain. He 
had no tackle or bait; reason easily could have told her 
that he would return shortly, and finish anything she 
wanted done; but when was a lonely, disappointed woman 
ever reasonable? » 

She set the dish water on the stove, wiped her hands on 
her apron, and walking to the garden picked up the spade 
and began turning big pieces of earth. She had never 
done rough farm work, such as women all around her did; 


WHEN THE i^INBOW SET ITS ARCH 119 

she had little exercise during the long, cold winter, so the 
first haJf-dozen spadefuls tired her until the tears of self- 
pity rolled. 

“I wish there was a turtle as big as a wash tub in the 
river,’’ she cried, ‘‘and I wish it would eat that old Black 
Bass to the last scale. I’m going to take the shotgun 
and go over to the embankment, and poke it into the 
tunnel, and blow the old Kingfisher through into the 
cornfield. Then maybe Dannie won’t go olF too and 
leave me. I want this onion bed spaded right away, so 
I do.” 

‘^Drop that! Idjit! What you doing?” yelled Jimmy. 

^‘Mary, ye goose!” panted Dannie, as he came hurrying 
across the yard. “Wha’ do ye mean? Ye knew I’d be 
back in a minute! Jimmy juist called me to hear the 
Bass splash. I was cornin’ straight back.” 

Dannie took the spade from her hand, and Mary fled 
sobbing to the house. 

“What’s the row?” demanded Jimmy of the suffering 
Dannie. 

“I’d juist started spadin’ this onion bed,” explained 
Dannie. “Of course, she thought we were going to stay 
all day.” 

“With no poles, no bait, no grub ? She didn’t think any 
such a domn thing,” said Jimmy. “You don’t know 
women! She just got to the place where it’s her time to 
spill brine, and raise a rumpus about something, and aisy 
brathin’ would start her. Just let her bawl it out, and 
thin — ^we’ll get something extra for dinner.” 

Dannie turned a spadeful of earth and broke it open* 


t2o AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW ,. 

Jimmy squatted beside the can, to pick up the angle 
worms. 

“I see where we dinna fish much this summer,” said 
Dannie, as he waited. “And where we fish close home 
when we do, and where all the work is done before we go.” 

“Aha, borrow me rose-coloured specks!” cried Jimmy. 
“I don’t see anything but what I’ve always seen. I’ll 
come and go as I please, and Mary can do the same. I 
don’t throw no ‘jeminy fit’ every time a woman acts the 
fool a little, and if you’d lived with one fiftane years you 
wouldn’t either. Of course we’ll make the garden. Wish 
to goodness it was a beer garden! Wouldn’t I like to 
plant a lot of hop seed and see rows of little green beer 
bottles humpin’ up the dirt. Oh, my! What all does she 
want done?” 

Dannie turned another spadeful of earth then studied 
the premises, while Jimmy gathered the worms. 

“Palins all on the fence?” asked Dannie. 

“Yep,” said Jimmy. 

“Well, the yard is to be raked.” 

“Yep.” 

“The flooer beds spaded.” 

“Yep.” 

“Stones around the peonies, phlox, and hollyhocks 
raised and manure worked in. All the trees must be 
pruned, the bushes and vines trimmed, and the goose- 
berries, currants, and raspberries thinned. The straw- 
berry bed must be fixed up, and the rhubarb and asparagus 
spaded around , and manured. This whole garden must 
be made ” 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH i2E 


And the road swept, and the gate sandpapered, and the 
barn whitewashed ! Return to grazing, Nebuchadnezzar,^ 
said Jimmy. ‘‘We do what’s raisonable, and then we go 
fishin’. Sec?” 

Three beds spaded, squared, and ready for seeding lay^ 
in the warm spring sunshine before noon. Jimmy rakeds 
the yard, while Dannie trimmed the gooseberries. Them 
he wheeled a barrel of swamp loam for a flower bed by the: 
cabin wall, listening intently between each shovelful he" 
threw. He could not hear a sound. What was more, he 
could not endure it. He went to Jimmy. 

“ Say, Jimmy,” he said. “ Dinna ye have to gae in fra 3 
drink?” 

“House or town?” inquired Jimmy sweetly. 

“The house!” exploded Dannie. “I dinna hear a sound 
yet. Ye gae in fra a drink, and tell Mary I want to know 
where she’d like the new flooer bed she’s been talking 
about.” 

Jimmy leaned the rake against a tree, and started. 

“And Jimmy,” said Dannie. “If she’s quit crying, ask 
her what was the matter. I want to know.” 

Jimmy vanished. Presently he passed Dannie where he^ 
worked. 

“Come on,” whispered Jimmy. 

The bewildered Dannie followed. Jimmy slunk behind 
the barn, where he leaned against the logs holding his sides, 
Dannie stared at him. • 

“She says,” wheezed Jimmy, “that she guesses shc^ 
wanted to hear the Bass splash, too!” 

Dannie’s mouth fell open, then closed with a snap.. 


tzz AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


fra the fool killer! he said. ^We dinna let her see 
ye laugh?” 

^‘Let her see me laugh ! ” cried Jimmy. “ Let her see me 
laugh! I told her she wasnT to go for a few days yet, be- 
cause we were sawin’ the Kingfisher^s stump up into a 
rustic sate for her, and we were goin^ to carry her out to it, 
and she was to sit there and sew, and umpire the fishing 
and whichiver bait she told the Bass to take, that one of us 
would be gettin^ it. She was pleased as anything, me lad, 
and now it^s up to us to rig up some sort of a dacint sate, 
and tag a woman along half the time. You thick-tongued 
descindint of a bagpipe baboon, what did you sind me in 
there for?” 

^^Maybe a little of it will tire her,” groaned Dannie. 

‘‘It will if she undertakes to follow me,” Jimmy said. 
"“I know where horse-weeds grow giraffe high.” 

Then they went back to work. Presently many savoury 
odours began to steal from the cabin. Whereat Jimmy 
looked at Dannie, to wink an ‘T-told-you-so ” wink. 

A garden grows fast under the hands of two strong men 
really working, so by the time the first slice of sugar-cured 
ham for that season struck the sizzling skillet, the garden 
was almost ready for planting. Mary very meekly called 
from the back door to know if one of them wanted to dig a 
little horseradish. 

When they were called to supper they found fragrant, 
thick slices of juicy fried ham, seasoned with horseradish; 
fried eggs, freckled with the ham fat in which they were 
cooked; fluffy mashed potatoes, with a small well of 
melted butter in the centre of the mound overflowing 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 123 

the sides; raisin pie, soda biscuit, and their own maple 
syrup. 

“Ohumahoh!’^ said Jimmy. don^t know as I hanker 
for city life so much as I sometimes think I do. What do 
you suppose the adulterated stuff we read about in papers 
tastes like?’’ 

‘H’ve often wondered,” answered Dannie. ^^Look at 
some of the hogs and cattle that we see shipped from here 
to city markets. The folks that sell them would starve be- 
fore they’d eat a bite o’ them, yet somebody eats them. 
And what do ye suppose maple syrup niade from hickory 
bark and brown sugar tastes like?” 

*‘And cold-storage eggs, cotton-seed butter, and even 
horseradish half turnip,” added Mary. ‘‘Bate up the 
cream a little before you put it in your coffee, or it will be 
in lumps. Whin the cattle are on clover it raises so thick/^ 

Jimmy speared a piece of salt-rising bread crust soaked 
in ham gravy made with cream, and said: “I wish I could 
bring that Thrid Man home with me to one meal of the 
real thing nixt time he strikes town. I belave he would 
injoy it. May I, Mary?” 

Maiy^’s face flushed slightly. 

^‘Depends on whin he comes,” she said. “Of course, i{ 
I am cleaning house, or busy with something I can’t put 
off' ” 

“Sure!” cried Jimmy. “I’d ask you before I brought 
him, because I’d want him to have something spicial. 
Some of this ham, and horseradish, and maple syrup to be- 
gin with, and thin your fried spring chicken and your 
stewed squirrel is a drame, Mary. Nobody iver makes 


124 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

turtle soup half so rich as yours, and your green peas in 
cream and asparagus on toast is a rivilation — don’t you 
remimber ’twas Father Michael that said it ? I ought to be 
able to find mushrooms in a few weeks, and I can taste your 
rhubarb pie over from last year. Gee! Bui I wish he’d 
come in strawberrying! Berries from the vines, butter in 
the crust, crame you have to bate to make it smooth — talk 
about shortcake!” 

“What’s wrong wi’ cherry cobbler?” asked Dannie. 

“Or blackberry pie?” 

“Or greens cooked wi’ bacon?” 

^‘Or chicken pie?” 

“Or catfish rolled in cornmeal and fried in ham fat?” 

“Or guineas stewed in cream, with hard-boiled eggs in 
the gravy?” 

“Oh, stop!” cried the delighted Mary. “It makes me 
dead tired thinkin’ how I’ll iver be cookin’ all you’ll want. 
Sure, have him come, and both of you can choose the 
things you like best, and I’ll fix thim for him. Pure, fresh 
stuff might be a trate to a city man. When Dolan took 
sister Katie to New York with him, his boss sent them to a 
five-dollar-a-day house, so they thought they was some up. 
By the third day poor Katie was cryin’ for a square male. 
She couldn’t touch the butter, the eggs made her sick, and 
the cold-storage meat and chicken never got nearer her 
stomach than her nose. So she just ate fish, because they 
were fresh, and she ate, and she ate, till if you mintion 
New York to poor Katie she turns pale and tastes fish. 
She vows and declares that she feeds her chickens and pigs 
better food twice a day than people fed her in New York.** 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 125 

bet my new milk pail the grub we eat ivry day 
would be a trate that would raise him/^ said Jimmy. 
‘‘Provided his taste ainT so depraved with saltpeter and 
chalk he doesn’t know fresh, pure food whin he tastes it. 
I understand some of the victims really don’t.” 

“Your new milk pail?” questioned Mary. 

“That’s what!” said Jimmy. “The nixt time I go to 
town I’m goin’ to get you two.” 

“But I only need one,” protested Mary. “Instead of 
two, bring me a new dishpan. Mine leaks, and smears the 
stove and table.” 

“Begorra!” sighed Jimmy. “There goes me tongue 
lettin’ me in for it again. I’ll look over the skins, and if 
any of thim are ripe. I’ll bring you a milk pail and a dish- 
pan the nixt time I go to town. And, by gee! If that 
dandy big coon hide I got last fall looks good. I’m going to 
comb it up, and work the skin fine, and send it to the 
Thrid Man, with me complimints. I don’t feel right 
about him yet. Wonder what his name railly is, and where 
he lives, or whether I killed him complate.” 

“Any drygoods man in town can tell ye,” said Dannie. 

“Ask the clerk in the hotel,” suggested Mary. 

“You’ve said it,” cried Jimmy. “That’s the stuff \ 
And I can find out whin he will be here again.” 

Two hours more they faithfully worked on the garden^ 
then Jimmy began to grow restless. 

“Ah, go on!” cried Mary. “You have done all that is 
needed just now, and more too. There won’t any fish bite 
to-day, but you can have the pleasure of stringin’ thim poor 
sufferin’ worms on a hook and soaking thim in the river.’^ 


126 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


‘‘‘SufFerin^ worms!’ Sufferin’ Job!” cried Jimmy. 

What nixt ? Go on, Dannie, fetch your pole ! ” 

Dannie went. As he came back Jimmy was sprinkling 
a thin layer of earth over the bait in the can. ‘"Why not 
come along, Mary?” he suggested. 

“I’m not done planting my seeds/’ she answered. “I’ll 
be tired when I am, and I thought that sate wasn’t fixed 
for me yet.” 

“We can’t make that till a little later,” said Jimmy. 

We can’t tell where it’s going to be grassy and shady yet, 
and the wood is too wet.” 

“Any kind of a sate will do,” said Mary. “I guess you 
better not try to make one out of the Kingfisher stump. 
If you take it out it may change the pool and drive away 
the Bass.” 

“Sure!” cried Jimmy. “What a head you’ve got! 
We’ll have to find some other stump for you.” 

^‘I don’t want to go until it gets dry underfoot, and 
warmer,” said Mary. “You boys go on. I’ll till you 
whin I am riddy to go.” 

“There!” said Jimmy, when well on the way to the 
river. “What did I tell you? Won’t go if she has the 
chance! Jist wants to be asked 

“I dinna pretend to know women,” said Dannie gravely. 
“But whatever Mary does is all richt with me.” 

“So I’ve obsarved,” remarked Jimmy. “Now, how 
will we get at this fishin’ to be parfectly fair?” 

“Tell ye what I think,” said Dannie. “I think we 
ought to pick out the twa best places about the Black 
Bass pool, and ye take ane fra yours and I’ll take th^ 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 127 

ither fra mine, and then we’ll each fish from his own 
place.” 

^‘Nothing fair about that,” answered Jimmy. ‘^You 
might just happen to strike the bed where he lays most, 
and be gettin’ bites all the time, and me none; or I might 
strike it and you be left out. And thin there’s days whin 
the wind has to do, and the light. We ought to change 
places ivry hour.” 

“There’s nothing fair in that either,” broke in Dannie. 
“I might have him tolled up to my place, and juist be 
feedin’ him my bait, and here you’d come along proving 
by your watch that my time was up, and take him when I 
had him all ready to bite.” 

^‘That’s so for you ! ” hurried in Jimmy. “ I’ll be hanged 
if I’d leave a place by the watch whin I had a strike!” 

“Me either,” said Dannie. “ ’Tis past human nature to 
ask it. I’ll tell ye what we’ll do. We’ll go to work and rig 
up a sort of a bridge where it’s so narrow and shallow, juist 
above Kingfisher shoals, and then we’ll toss up fra sides. 
Then each will keep to his side. With a decent pole either 
of us can throw across the pool, and both of us can fish as 
we please. Then each fellow can pick his bait, and cast or 
fish deep as he thinks best. What d’ye say to that?” 

“I don’t see how anything could be fairer than that,” 
said Jimmy. “I don’t want to fish for anything but the 
Bass. I’m goin’ back and get our rubber boots; you be 
rollin’ logs, and we’ll build that crossing right now.” 

“All richt,” said Dannie. 

So they laid aside their poles and tackle. Dannie rolled 
logs and gathered material for the bridge^ while Jimmy 


128 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


went back after their boots. Then both of them entered 
the water to clear away drift and lay the foundations. As 
the first log of the crossing lifted above the water Dannie 
paused. 

“How about the Kingfisher?” he asked. “Winna this 
scare him away?” 

“Not if he ain’t a domn fool,” said Jimmy; “and if he 
is, let him go!” 

“Seems like the river would no be juist richt without 
him,” said Dannie, breaking off a spice limb to nibble the 
fragrant buds. “Let’s only use what we bare need to get 
across. And where will we fix fra Mary?” 

“Oh, git out!” said Jimmy. “I ain’t goin’ to fool with 
that.” 

“Well, we best make a place. Then we can tell her 
it’s all ready.” 

“Sure!” cried Jimmy. “You are catchin’ it from the 
neighbours. Till her a place is all fixed and waitin’, and 
you couldn’t drag her here with a team of oxen. Till her 
you are going to fix it soon, and she’ll come to see if you’ve 
done it, if she has to be carried on a stritcher.” 

So they selected a spot they thought would be right for 
Mary; not close enough to disturb the Bass and the King- 
fisher, rolled two logs, and fished a board that had been 
carried by a freshet from the water to lay across them. 

Then they sat astride the board, while Dannie drew out 
a coin, which they tossed. Dannie won heads. Then 
they tossed to see which bank was heads or tails. The 
right, which was on Rainbow side, came heads. So Jimmy 
was to use the bridge. 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 129 

Then they went home to do the night work. The first 
thing Jimmy espied was the barrel containing the milk 
pail. He took the pail, and while Dannie fed the stock, 
shovelled manure, and milked, Jimmy pounded out the 
dents, closed the bullet holes, emptied the bait into it, half 
filled it with mellow earth, then went to Mary for some 
cornmeal to sprinkle on top to feed the worms. 

At four o’clock the following morning, Dannie was up 
feeding, milking, scraping plows, and setting bolts. After 
breakfast they piled their implements on a mudboat, 
which Dannie drove, while Jimmy rode one of his horses, 
and led the other, so that he could open the gates. They 
began on Dannie’s field, because it was closest, and for two 
weeks, unless it were too rainy to work, they plowed, har- 
rowed, lined olF, and planted the seed. 

The blackbirds followed along the furrows picking up 
grubs, the crows cawed from high tree tops, the bluebirds 
twittered around hollow stumps and fence rails, the wood 
thrushes sang out their souls in the thickets across the 
river, while the King Cardinal of Rainbow Bottom whistled 
to split his throat from the giant sycamore. Tender 
greens were showing beside the river and in the fields. 
The purple of red-bud mingled with the white of wild plum 
all along the Wabash. 

The sunny side of the hill that sloped to Rainbow Bot- 
tom was a mass of spring beauties, anemones, and violets; 
thread-like ramps arose rank to the scent among them, 
and round ginger leaves were thrusting their folded heads 
through the mold. The Kingfisher was cleaning his house 
and fishing from his favourite stump in the river, while 


130 AT THE FOOT OF THE .RAINBOW 

near him, at the fall of every luckless worm that missed 
its hold on a blossom-whitened thorn tree, came the splash 
of the Black Bass. 

Every morning the Bass took a trip around Horseshoe 
Bend food hunting, and the small fry raced for life before 
his big, trap-like jaws. During the heat of noon he lay in 
the deep pool below the stump, and rested; but when eve- 
ning came he set out in search of supper. Frequently he 
felt so good that he leaped clear of the water, then felt 
back with a splash that threw shining spray around him, 
or lashed out with his tail sending widening circles of waves 
rolling from his lurking place. Then the Kingfisher rat- 
tled with all his might, as he flew for the tunnel in the 
embankment. 

Some of these days the air was still, the earth warmed 
in the golden sunshine, murmuring a low song of sleepy 
content. Some days the wind raised, whirling dead leaves 
before it, covering the earth with drifts of plum, cherry, 
and apple bloom, like late falling snow. Then great 
black clouds came sweeping across the sky, massing; 
above Rainbow Bottom. The lightning flashed as if the 
heavens were being cracked open, while the rolling thunder 
sent terror to the hearts of man and beast. When the 
birds flew for shelter, Dannie and Jimmy unhitched their 
horses, racing for the stables to escape the storm, also to 
be with Mary, whom electricity made nervous. 

They would sit on the small front porch to watch the 
greedy earth drink the downpour. They could almost 
see the grass and flowers grow. When the clouds scat- 
tered, the thunder grew fainter, while the sun shone again 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 131 

between light sprinkles of rain. Then a great, glittering 
rainbow set its arch in the sky. It planted one of its 
feet in Horseshoe Bend, and the other so far away they 
could not even guess where. 

If it rained lightly, in a short time Dannie and Jimmy 
could go back to their work afield. If the downpour was 
heavy, making plowing impossible, they pulled weeds, or 
hoed in the garden. Dannie discoursed on the wholesome 
freshness of the earth, while Jimmy ever waited a chance 
to twist his words, so that he might raise a laugh on him. 
He usually found it. Sometimes, after a rain, they took 
their bait cans, and rods, and went down to the river to fish. 

If one could not go, the other refrained from casting 
bait into the pool where the Black Bass lay. Once, when 
they were fishing together, the Bass arose to a white moth, 
skittered over the surface by Dannie late in the evening. 
Twice Jimmy had strikes which he averred had taken the 
arm almost off him, but neither really had the Bass on his 
hook. They remained on their own land, fishing when 
they pleased, for game laws and wardens were unknown to 
them. 

Neither of them really hoped to hook the Bass before 
fall. The water was too high in the spring. Minnows 
were plentiful, while as Jimmy said, ^Ht seemed as if the 
domn plum tree just rained caterpillars.^’ So they waited. 
The signs prohibiting trespass on all sides of their land 
were many and emphatic. Mary even had instructions 
to ring the dinner bell if she caught sight of any strangers. 

The days grew longer, the sun became insistent. Un- 
told miles they trudged back and forth across their land. 


132 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

guiding their horses, jerked with plows, their feet weighted 
with the damp, clinging earth, and their clothing pasted 
to their wet bodies. Jimmy was growing restless. Never 
had he worked so faithfully as that spring, yet never had 
his visits to Casey’s so tried him. No matter where they 
started, or how hard they worked, Dannie crossed the 
middle of the field, to help Jimmy before the finish. It 
was always Dannie who plowed, while Jimmy rode to 
town for the missing bolt or buckle, then he usually rolled 
from his horse into a fence corner, to sleep the remainder 
of the day. 

The work and heat were beginning to tire him, while hi? 
trips to Casey’s were much less frequent than he desired. 
He grew to feel that between them Dannie and Mary 
were driving him, hence a desire to balk at slight cause 
gathered in his breast. He deliberately tied his team in 
a fence corner, lay down, and fell asleep. The clanging 
of the supper bell aroused him. He opened his eyes, and 
as he arose, found that Dannie had been to the barn, to 
bring a horse blanket to cover him. 

Well as he knew anything, Jimmy knew that he had no 
business sleeping in fence corners so early in the season. 
With candour he would have admitted to himself that a 
part of his uncertain temper came from, aching bones and 
rheifmatic twinges. Some way, the sight of Dannie swing- 
ing across the field, looking as fresh as in the early morm 
ing; the fact that he had carried a blanket to cover him, 
and the further fact that he was wild for drink, when he 
had no excuse for going to town, brought him to a fighting 


crisis. 


WHEN THE RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 133 

Dannie turned his horses at Jimmy ^s feet. 

^^Come on, Jimmy, supper bell has rung,^^ he cried. 
‘‘We mustn^t keep Mary waiting. She wants us to help 
her plant the sweet potatoes to-nicht.’^ 

As Jimmy arose, his joints almost creaked. The pain 
angered him. He leaned forward glaring at Dannie. 

“Is there one minute of the day whin you ain’t thinkin’ 
about my wife?” he demanded, oh, so slowly, and so hate- 
fully! 

Dannie met his gaze squarely. “Na a minute,” he 
answered, “excepting when I am thinking about ye.” 

“The Hell you say!” exploded the astonished Jimmy. 

Dannie stepped from the furrow, and came closer. 
“See here, Jimmy Malone,” he said. “Ye ain’t forgot 
the nicht when I told ye I loved Mary, with all my heart, 
and that I’d never love another woman. I sent ye to tell 
her fra me, and to ask if I might come to her. And ye 
brought me her answer. It’s na your fault that she pre- 
ferred ye. Everybody did. But it is your fault that I’ve 
stayed on here. I tried to go, and ye wouldna let me. 
So for fifteen years, ye have lain with the woman I love, 
and I have lain alone in a few rods of ye. If that ain’t 
Man-Hell, try some other on me, and see if it will touch 
me! I sent ye to tell her that I loved her; have I ever sent 
ye to tell her that I’ve quit? I should think you’d know, 
by this time, that I’m na quitter. Love her! Why, I 
love her till I can see her standin’ plain before me when I 
know she’s a mile away. Love her! Why, I can smell hef 
any place I am, sweeter than any flower I ever held to my 
face. Love her! Till the day I dee I’ll love her. But it 


134 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

ain’t any fault of yours, and if ye’ve come to the place 
where I worry ye, that’s the time for me to go, as I wanted 
to on the same day ye brought Mary to Rainbow Bottom.’^ 

Jimmy’s gray jaws fell open. Jimmy’s sullen eyes 
cleared. He caught Dannie by the arm. 

‘‘For the love of Hivin, whal did I say, Dannie.^” he 
panted. “I must have been half asleep. Go! You go! 
You leave Rainbow Bottom! Thin, before God, I go too! 
I won’t stay here without you, not a day. If I had to 
take my choice between you. I’d give up Mary before 
I’ve give up the best frind I iver had. • Go! I guess not, 
unless I go with you ! She can go to ” 

“Jimmy! Jimmy!” cautioned Dannie. 

“I mane ivry word of it,” said Jimmy. “I think more 
of you than I iver did of any woman.” 

Dannie drew a deep breath. “Then why in the name 
of God did ye say that thing to me.^ I have na betrayed 
your trust in me, not ever, Jimmy, and ye know it. What’s 
the matter with ye.^” 

Jimmy heaved a deep sigh, rubbing his hands across his 
hot, angry face. 

“Oh, I’m just so sore!” he said. “Some days I get 
about wild. Things haven’t come out like I thought they 
would.” 

“Jimmy, if ye are in trouble, why do ye na tell me? 
Canna I help ye? Haven’t I always helped ye if I 
could?” 

“Yes, you have,” said Jimmy. “Always, been a thou- 
sand times too good to me. But you can’t help here. 
I’m up agin it alone, but put this in your pipe,, and smoke 


^AHHEN TEZ RAINBOW SET ITS ARCH 135 

It good and brown, if you go, I go. I don^t stay here with- 
out you.” 

‘‘Then it’s up to ye na to make it impossible for me to 
stay,” said Dannie. “After this. I’ll try to be carefu’. 
I’ve had no guard on my lips. I’ve said whatever came 
into my heid.” 

The supper bell clanged sharply a second tirrie. 

“That manes more Hivin on the Wabash,” said Jimmy. 
“Wish I had a bracer before I face it.” 

“How long has it been, Jimmy?” asked Dannie. 
“Etarnity!” replied Jimmy briefly. 

Dannie stood thinking, then understanding came. 
Jimmy was always short of money in summer. When 
trapping was over, and before any crops were ready, he 
was usually out of funds. Dannie hesitated; then he said: 
'‘Would a small loan be what ye need, Jimmy?” 

Jimmy’s eyes gleamed. “It would put new life into 
me,” he cried. “ Forgive me, Dannie. I am almost crazy.’^ 
Dannie handed over a coin. After supper Jimmy went 
to town. Then Dannie saw his mistake. He had pur- 
chased peace for himself, but what about Mary? 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONI. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Heart of Mary Malone 

'^This Is the job that was done with a reaper. 

If we hustle we can do It ourselves. 

Thus securing to us a little cheaper. 

The bread and pie upon our pantry shelves. 

“ Eat this wheat, by and by. 

On this beautiful Wabash shore. 

Drink this rye, by and by. 

Eat and drink on this beautiful shore.” 

S O SANG Jimmy as he drove through the wheats 
oats and rye accompanied by the clacking machin- 
ery. Dannie stopped stacking sheaves to mop his 
warm, perspiring face while he listened. Jimmy always 
watching the eflFect he was producing immediately broke 
into wilder parody: 

Drive this mower, a little slower. 

On this beautiful Wabash shore, 

Cuttin’ wheat to buy our meat, 

Cuttin’ oats, to buy our coats. 

Also pants, if we get the chance. 

*‘By and by, we’ll cut the rye. 

But I bet my hat I drink that, I drink that. 

Drive this mower a little slower. 

In this wheat, in this wheat, by and by.” 

139 


140 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

1 

The larks scolded, fluttering overhead, for at times the 
reaper overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks 
danced and chattered on stumps and fences, in an agony of 
suspense, when their nests were approached, crying piti- 
fully if they were destroyed. The chewinks flashed from 
the ground to the fences or trees, and back, crying ^^Che- 
wink?^’ ^‘Che-wee!’’ to each other, in such excitement that 
they appeared to be in danger of flirting off* their long tails. 
The quail ran around the shorn fields, excitedly calling 
from fence riders to draw their flocks into the security of 
Rainbow Bottom. 

Frightened hares bounded through the wheat; if the 
cruel blade sheared into their nests, Dannie gathered the 
wounded and helpless of the scattered broods in his hat, 
and carried them to Mary. 

Then came threshing, which was a busy time, but after 
that, through the long hot days of late July and August, 
there was little to do afield, and fishing was impossible. 
Dannie grubbed fence corners, mended fences, chopped 
and corded wood for winter, in spare time reading 
his books. For the most part Jimmy kept close to 
Dannie. 

Jimmy’s temper never had been so variable. Dannie 
was greatly troubled, for despite Jimmy’s protests of de- 
votion, he flared at a word; sometimes at no word at all. 
The only thing in which he really seemed interested was 
the coon skin he was dressing to send to Boston. Over 
that he worked by the hour, sometimes with earnest face; 
sometimes he raised his head, to utter a whoop that almost 
frightened Mary. At such times he was sure to go on and 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 141 

give her some new detail of the hunt for the fifty coons, 
that he had forgotten to tell her before. 

He had been to the hotel, to learn the Thread Man^s 
name and address, learning that he did not come regularly, 
and no one knew when to expect him. So when he had 
combed and brushed the fur to its finest point; worked the 
skin until it was velvet soft, and bleached it until it was 
muslin white, he made it into a neat package and sent it 
with his compliments to the Boston man. 

After he had waited a week, he began going to town 
every day to the post office for the letter he expected, often 
coming home much worse because of a visit to Casey’s. 
Since plowing time he had asked Dannie for money as he 
wanted it, telling him to keep an account, so he would pay 
him in the fall. He seemed to forget or not to know how 
fast his bills grew. 

Then came a week in August when the heat invaded 
even the cool retreat beside the river. On the highway 
passing wheels rolled back the dust like water, or raised it 
in clouds after them. The rag weeds hung wilted heads 
along the road. The goldenrod and purple ironwort were 
dust-coloured and dust-choked. The trees were thirsty, 
and their leaves shrivelling. The river bed was bare its 
width in places. The Kingfisher made merry with his 
family, and rattled, feasting from Abram Johnson’s to the 
Gar-hole, the Black Bass sought its deep pool, and lay 
still. It was a rare thing to hear it splash in those days. 

The prickly heat burned until the souls of men were 
tried. Mary slipped listlessly around or lay much of the 
time on a couch beside a window, where a breath of air 


142 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

stirred. Despite the good beginning he had made in the 
spring, Jimmy slumped with the heat and exposures he 
had risked, so he was difficult to live with. 

Dannie was not having a good time himself. Since 
Jimmy^s wedding, life had been all grind to Dannie, but he 
kept his reason, accepted his lot, and ground his grist with 
patience and such cheer as few men could have summoned 
to the aid of so poor a cause. 

Had there been any one to notice it, Dannie was tired 
and heat-ridden also, but as always, Dannie sank self, to 
labour uncomplainingly with Jimmy^s problems. On a 
burning August morning Dannie went to breakfast, find- 
ing Mary white and nervous, little prepared to eat, and no 
sign of Jimmy. 

Jimmy sleeping?’’ he asked, 
don’t know where Jimmy is,” Mary answered coldly. 

‘‘Since when?” asked Dannie, gulping coffee, and taking 
hasty bites, for he had begun his breakfast supposing that 
Jimmy would come presently. 

“He left as soon as you went home last night,” she said, 
“and he has not come back yet ” 

Dannie did not know what to say. Loyal to the bone to 
Jimmy, loving each hair on the head of Mary Malone; she 
worn and neglected, the problem was heartbreaking in any 
solution he attempted, and he felt none too well himself. 
He arose hastily, muttering something about getting the 
work done. He brought in wood and water, then asked if 
there were anything more he could do. 

“Sure!” said Mary, in a calm, even voice. “Go to 
the barn, and shovel manure for Jimmy Malone, and 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 143 

do all the work he shirks, before you do anything for 
yoursilf/^ 

Dannie always had admitted that he did not understand 
women> but he understood a plain danger signal, so he al- 
most ran from the cabin. In the fear that Mary might 
think he had heeded her hasty words, he went to his own 
barn first, just to show her that he did not do Jimmy’s 
work. 

The flies and mosquitoes were so bad he kept his horses 
stabled through the day, turning them to pasture at night. 
So their stalls were to be cleaned, and he began to work. 
When he had finished his own barn, as he had nothing else 
to do, he went on to Jimmy^s. 

He had cleaned the stalls, and was sweeping when he 
heard a sound at the back door, and turning saw Jimmy 
clinging to the casing, unable to stand longer. Dannie 
sprang to help him inside. Jimmy sank to the floor. 
Dannie caught up several empty grain sacks, folding 
them, to push them under Jimmy’s head for a pillow. 

‘^Dannish, didsh shay y’r nash’nal flowerish wash 
shisle?” asked Jimmy. 

‘‘Yes,” said Dannie, lifting the heavy auburn head to 
smooth the folds from the sacks. 

“Whysh like me?” 

“I dinna,” answered Dannie wearily. 

“Awful jagsh on,” murmured Jimmy, sighed heavily, 
and was asleep. 

His clothing was torn and dust-covered, his face was 
purple and bloated, while his hair was dusty and dis- 
ordered. He was a repulsive sight. As Dannie straight- 


144 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 

ened Jimmy’s limbs he thought he heard a step. He lifted 
his head, leaning forward to listen. 

“Dannie Micnoun?” called the same even, cold voice he 
had heard at breakfast. “Have you left me, too?” 

Dannie sprang to a manger. He caught an armload of 
hay, throwing it over Jimmy. He gave one hurried toss to 
scatter it, for Mary was in the barn. As he turned to Inter- 
pose his body between her and the manger, which partially 
screened Jimmy, his heart sickened. He was too late. 
She had seen. Frightened to the soul, he stared at her. 
She came a step closer, with her foot giving a hand of 
Jimmy’s that lay exposed a contemptuous shove. 

“You didn’t get him complately covered,” she said. 
“How long have you had him here?” 

Dannie was frightened into speech. “Na a minute, 
Mary; he juist came in when I heard ye. I was trying to 
spare ye.” 

“Him, you mane,” she said, in that same strange voice. 
“I suppose you give him money; he has a bottle, and he’s 
been here all night.” 

“Mary,” said Dannie, “that’s na true. I have fur- 
nished him money. He’d mortgage the farm, or do some- 
thing worse if I didna; but I dinna where he has been all 
nicht, and in trying to cover him, my only thought was to 
save ye pain.” 

“And whin you let him spind money you know you’ll 
never get back, and loaf while you do his work, and when 
you lie mountain high, times without number, who is it 
for?” 

Then fifteen years’ restraint slid from Dannie like a 



She shook with strangled sobs until she scarce could stand alone ” 
{see page 122^ 



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THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 145 

cloak, while in the torture of his soul hk slow tongue outran 
all its previous history. 

‘‘Ye!’^ he shouted. ^Ht’s fra Jimmy, too, but ye first. 
Always ye first!’’ 

Mary began to tremble. Her white cheeks burned red. 
Her figure straightened; her hands clenched. 

‘‘On the cross 1 Do you swear it ? ” she cried. 

“On the sacred body of Jesus Himself, if I could face 
Him,” answered Dannie. “Onything! Everything is fra 
ye first, Mary!” 

“Then why?” she panted between gasps for breath. 
“Tell me why? If you have cared for me enough to stay 
here all these years and see that I had the bist tratemint 
you could get for me, why didn’t you care for me enough 
more to save me this ? Oh, Dannie, tell me why ? ” 

Then she shook with strangled sobs until she scarcely 
could stand alone. 

Dannie Macnoun cleared the space between them taking 
her in his arms. Her trembling hands clung to him, her 
head dropped on his breast, the perfume of her hair in his 
nostrils drove him mad. Then the tense bulk of her body 
struck against him, filling his soul with horror. One 
second he held her, the next, Jimmy smothering under the 
hay, threw up an arm, calling like a petulant child. 

“ Dannie ! Make shun quit shinish my fashe ! ” 

Dannie awoke to the realization that Mary was another 
man’s, and that man, one who trusted him completely. 
The problem was so much too big for poor Dannie that 
reason kindly fled. He broke from the grasp of the woman, 
fled through the back door, and entered the woods. 


146 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

He ran as if fiends were after him, and he ran and ran. 
And when he could run no longer, he walked, but he went 
on. On and on. He crossed forests and fields, orchards 
and highways, streams and rivers, deep woods and swamps, 
and on, and on he went. He felt nothing, saw nothing, 
thought nothing, save to go on, always on. In the dark 
he stumbled on, through the day he staggered on, while 
he stopped for nothing, save at times to lift water to his 
parched lips. 

The bushes took his hat, the thorns ripped his shirt, 
the water soaked his shoes so they spread until his feet 
came through while the stones cut them until they bled. 
Leaves and twigs stuck in his hair, his eyes grew blood- 
shot, his lips and tongue swollen. When he could go no 
farther on his feet, he crawled on his knees, until at last 
he pitched forward on his face and lay still. The tumult 
was over so Mother Nature set to work to see about re- 
pairing damages. 

Dannie was so badly damaged, soul, heart, and body, 
that she never would have been equal to the task, but 
another woman happened that way so she helped. 

Dannie was carried to a house and a doctor dressed his 
hurts. When the physician made his examination, he 
was amazed to fine a big, white-bodied, fine-faced Scotch- 
man in the heart of the wreck: a wild man, but not a 
whiskey bloat: a crazy man, but not a maniac. He stood 
long beside Dannie as he lay unconscious. 

‘H’ll take oath that man has wronged no one,’^ he said. 
‘* What in the name of God has some woman been doing 
to him?’’ 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 


147 


He took money from Dannie’s wallet and bought cloth* 
ing to replace the rags he had burned. He filled Dannie 
with nourishment, telling the woman who found him that 
when he awakened, if he did not remember, to tell him 
that his name was Dannie Macnoun; that he lived in 
Rainbow Bottom, Adams County. For at that time 
Dannie was halfway across the state. 

A day later he awakened, in a strange room and among 
strange faces. He took up life exactly where he left off. 
So in his ears, as he remembered his flight, rang the awful 
cry uttered by Mary Malone, and not until then did there 
come to Dannie the realization that she had been driven 
to seek him for help, because her woman’s hour was upon 
her. Cold fear froze Dannie’s soul. 

He went back by railway and walked the train most of 
the way. He dropped from the cars at the water tank 
cutting across country, and again he ran: but this time 
it was no headlong flight. Straight as a homing bird 
went Dannie with all speed, toward the foot of the Rain- 
bow and Mary Malone. 

The Kingfisher sped rattling down the river when Dan- 
nie came crashing along the bank. 

‘^Oh, God, let her be alive!” prayed Dannie as he leaned 
panting against a tree for an instant, because he was very 
close now and sickeningly afraid. Then he ran on. In 
a minute it would be over. At the next turn he could see 
the cabins. As he dashed along, Jimmy Malone arose 
from a log and faced him. A white Jimmy, with black- 
ringed eyes and shaking hands. 

Where the hell have you been?” Jimmy demanded* 


148 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“ Is she dead ? ” cried Dannie. 

“The doctor is talking scare,” said Jimmy. “But 1 
don’t scare so easy. She’s never been sick in her life, 
and she has lived through it twice before, why should 
she die now? Of course the kid is dead again,” he added 
angrily. 

Dannie shut his eyes and stood still. He had helped 
plant star-flowers on two tiny cross-marked mounds at 
Five Mile Hill. Now, there were three. Jimmy had 
worn out her love for him, that was plain. 

“Why should she die now? ” To Dannie it seemed that 
question should have been : “Why should she live ? ” 

Jimmy eyed him belligerently. “Why in the name of 
sinse did you cut out whin I was off me pins?” he growled. 
“Of course I don’t blame you for cutting that kind of a 
party, me for the woods, all right, but what I can’t see is 
why you couldn’t have gone for the doctor and waited 
until I’d slept it olF before you wint.” 

“I dinna know she was sick,” answered Dannie. “I 
deserve anything ony ane can say to me, and it’s all my 
fault if she dees, but this ane thing ye got to say ye know 
richt noo, Jimmy. Ye got to say ye know that I dinna 
understand Mary was sick when I went.” 

“Sure! I’ve said that all the time,” agreed Jimmy. 
“ But what I don’t understand is, why you went! I guess 
she thinks it was her fault. I came out here to try to study 
it out. The nurse-woman, domn pretty girl, says if you 
don’t get back before midnight, it’s all up. You’re just 
on time, Dannie. The talk in the house is that she’ll 
wink out if you don’t prove to her that she didn’t drive 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 


149 

you away. She is about crazy over it. What did she do 
to you?^' 

^^Nothing!’^ exclaimed Dannie. ‘‘She was so deathly 
sick she dinna what she was doing. I can see it noo, but 
I dinna understand then.’^ 

“That’s all right,” said Jimmy. “She 'didn’t! She 
kapes moaning over and over, ‘What did I do?’ You 
hustle in and fix it up with her. I’m getting tired of all 
this racket.” 

All Dannie heard was that he was to go to Mary. He 
went up the lane, across the garden, and stepped in 
the back door. Beside the table stood a comely young 
woman, dressed in blue and white stripes. She was 
doing something with eggs and milk. She glanced at 
Dannie, then finished filling a glass. As she held it to 
the light : 

“Is your name Macnoun?” she inquired. 

“Yes,” said Dannie. 

“Dannie Macnoun?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Dannie, 

“Then you are the medicine needed here just now,” she 
said, as if that were the most natural statement in the 
world. “Mrs. Malone seems to have an idea that she 
offended you, and drove you from home, just prior to her 
illness, and as she has been very sick, she is in no condition 
to bear other trouble. You understand ? ” 

“Do ye understand that I couldna have gone if I had 
known she was ill?” asked Dannie in turn. 

^From what she had said in delirium I have been sure 
of that,” replied the nurse. “It seems you have been the 


ISO AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

stay of the family for years. I have a very high opinion 
of you, Mr. Macnoun. Wait until I speak to her/’ 

The nurse vanished, presently returned, and as Dannie 
passed through the door, she closed it after him. He 
stood still, tr^dng to see in the dim light. 

That great snowy stretch, that must be the bed. That 
tumbled dark circle, that must be Mary’s hair. That 
dead white thing beneath it, that must be Mary’s face. 
Those burning lights, flaming on him, those must be 
Mary’s eyes. Dannie stepped softly across the room, to 
bend over the bed. He tried hard to speak naturally. 

^^Mary,” he said, ^^oh, Mary, I dinna know ye were ill! 
Oh, believe me, I dinna realize ye were suffering pain.” 

She smiled faintly, while her lips moved. Dannie bent 
lower. 

^‘Promise,” she panted. ‘^Promise you will stay now.” 

Her hand fumbled at her breast, and then she slipped 
on the white cover a little black cross. Dannie knew what 
she meant. He laid his hand on the emblem precious to 
her, and said gently: 

swear I never will leave ye again, Mary Malone.” 

A great light swept into her face, and she smiled happily, 

^‘Now ye,” said Dannie, He slipped the cross into het 
hand. Repeat after me,” he said, promise I will 
get well, Dannie.” 

I promise I will get well, Dannie, if I can,” said Mary. 

^^Na,” said Dannie, ‘‘That winna do. Repeat what 
I said, and remember it is on the cross. Life hasna been 
richt for ye, Mary, but if ye will get well, before the Lord 
in some way we vrill make it happier. Ye will get well?” 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 


iSi 

promise I will get well, Dannie/’ said Mary Malone, 
so Dannie quietly left the room. 

Outside he said to the nurse : What can I do ? ” 

She told him everything of which she could think that 
vvould he of benefit. 

‘^Now tell me all ye know of what happened,” com- 
manded Dannie. 

‘‘After you left,” said the nurse, ‘^she was in labour. 
She could not waken her husband, so she grew frightened 
and screamed. There were men passing on the road. 
They heard her, and came to see what was the matter.” 

“Strangers?” shuddered Dannie, with dry lips. 

“No, neighbours. One man went after the nearest 
woman, while the other drove to town for a doctor. They 
had help here almost as soon as you cpuld. But, of course, 
the shock was a very dreadful thing; then the heat of the 
past few weeks has been enervating.” 

“Ane thing more,” questioned Dannie. “Why do 
her children dee?” 

“I don’t know about the others,” answered the nurse. 
“This one simply couldn’t be made to breathe. It was a 
strange thing. It was a fine big baby, a boy, and it seemed 
perfect, but we couldn’t save it. I never worked harder. 
They told me she had lost two others, so we tried every- 
thing of which we could think. It just seemed as if it had 
grown a lump of flesh, with no vital spark in it.” 

Dannie turned, went out of “.he door, and back along the 
lane to the river where he had left Jimmy Malone. 

“‘A lump of flesh with na vital spark in it,’” he kept re- 
peating. “I dinna but that is the secret. She is almost 


152 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

numb with misery. All these days when she^s been with- 
out hope, and these awful nichts when she’s watched and 
feared alone, she has no wished to perpetuate him in chil- 
dren who might be like him, so at their coming the Vital 
spark’ is na in them. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, have ye 
Mary’s happiness and those three little graves to answer 
for?” 

He found Jimmy asleep where he had left him. Dannie 
shook him awake. want to talk with ye,” he said. 

Jimmy sat up, and looked into Dannie’s face. He had a 
complaint on his lips but it died there. He tried to apolo- 
gize. 

am almost dead for sleep,” he said. ‘‘There has been 
no rest for any one here. What do you think?” 

“I think she will live,” said Dannie dryly. “In spite of 
your neglect, and my cowardice, I think she will live to 
suffer more frae us.” 

Jimmy’s mouth opened, but for once no sound issued. 
The drops of perspiration raised on his forehead. 

Dannie sat down, and staring at him Jimmy saw that 
there were patches of white hair at his temples that had 
been brown a week before; his colourless face was sunken 
almost to the bone, while there was a peculiar twist around 
his mouth. Jimmy’s heart weighed heavily, his tongue 
stood still, and he grew afraid to the marrow in his bones. 

“I think she will live,” repeated Dannie. “And about 
the suffering more, we will face that like men, and see 
what can be done about it. This makes three little graves 
on the hill, Jimmy. What do they mean to ye?” 

“Domn bad luck,” said Jimmy promptly. 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 153 

“Nothing more?’’ asked Dannie. “Na responsibility 
at all. Ye are the father of those children. Have ye 
never been to the doctor, and asked why ye lost them?’’ 

“No, I haven’t,” said Jimmy. 

“That is ane thing we will do now,” said Dannie, “and 
then we will do more, much more.” 

“What arc you driving at?” asked Jimmy. 

“The secret of Mary’s heart,” said Dannie. 

The cold sweat ran from the pores of Jimmy’s body. He 
licked his dry lips, and pulled his hat over his eyes, that he 
might watch Dannie from under the brim. 

“We are twa big, strong men,” said Dannie. “For 
fifteen years we have lived here wi’ Mary. The night ye 
married her, the licht of happiness went out for me. But I 
shut my mouth, and shouldered my burden, and went on 
with my best foot first; because if she had na refused me, I 
should have married her, and then ye would have been the 
one to suflFer. If she had chosen me, I should have mar- 
ried her, juist as ye did. Oh, I’ve never forgotten that ! So 
I have na been a happy mon, Jimmy. We winna go into 
that any further, we’ve been over it once. It seems to be a 
form of torture especially designed fra me, though at times 
I must confess, it seems rough, and I canna see why, but 
we’ll cut that off with this: life has been hell’s hottest 
sweat-box fra me these fifteen years.” 

Jimmy groaned aloud. Dannie’s keen gray eyes seemed 
boring into the soul of the man before him, as he went on. 

“Now how about ye? Ye got the girl ye wanted. Ye 
own a guid farm that would make ye a living, and save ye 
money every year. Ye have done juist what ye pleased. 


154 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 

and a$ far as I could, I have helped ye. I’ve had my eye 
on ye pretty close, Jimmy, and if ye arc a happy mon, I 
dinna but I’m content as I am. What’s your trouble? 
Did ye find ye dinna love Mary after ye won her ? Did ye 
murder your mither or blacken your soul with some deadly 
sin ? Mon ! If I had in my life what ye every day neglect 
and torture, Heaven would come doon, and locate at the 
foot of the Rainbow fra me. But, ye are not happy, 
Jimmy, Let’s get at the root of the matter. While ye are 
unhappy, Mary will be also. We are responsible to God 
for her, and between us, she is empty armed, near to death, 
and almost dumb with misery. I have juist sworn to her 
on the cross she loves that if she will make ane more effort, 
and get well, we will make her happy. Now, how are we 
going to do it?” 

Another great groan burst from Jimmy, while he shivered 
as if with a chill. 

“Let us look ourselves in the face,” Dannie went on, 
“and see what we lack. What can we do fra her? What 
will bring a song to her lips, licht to her beautiful eyes, love 
to her heart, and a living child to her arms? Wake up, 
mon ! By God, if ye dinna set to work with me and solve 
this problem. I’ll shake a solution out of ye! What I must 
suffer is my own, but what’s the matter with ye, and why, 
when she loved and married ye, are ye breakin’ Mary’s 
heart? Answer me, mon!” 

Dannie reached over, snatching the hat from Jimmy’s 
forehead, and stared at an inert heap. Jimmy lay sense- 
less, while he looked like death. Dannie rushed down to 
the water with the hat, and splashed drops into Jimmy’s 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 


IS5 

face until he gasped for breath. When he recovered a little 
he shrank from Dannie, beginning to sob, as if he were a 
sick ten-year-old child. 

knew you’d go back on me, Dannie,” he wavered. 
*HVe lost the only frind IVe got, and I wish I was dead.” 

havena gone back on ye,” persisted Dannie, bathing 
Jimmy’s face. ‘‘Life means nothing to me, save as I can 
use it fia Mary and fra ye. Be quiet, and sit up here, and 
help me work this thing out. Why are ye a discontented 
mon, always wishing fra any place save home ^ Why do ye 
spend all ye earn foolishly, so that ye are always hard up, 
when ye might have affluence? Why does Mary lose her 
children, and why does she noo wish she had na married 
ye?” 

“Who said she wished she hadn’t married me?” cried 
Jimmy. 

“Do ye mean to say ye think she doesn’t?” blazed 
Dannie. 

“I ain’t said anything!” exclaimed Jimmy. 

“Na, and I seem to have damn poor luck gettin’ ye to 
say anything. I dinna ask fra tears, nor faintin’ like a 
woman. Be a mon, and let me into the secret of this 
muddle. There is a secret, and ye know it. What is it? 
Why are ye breaking the heart o’ Mary Malone? Answer 
me, or ’fore God I’ll wring the answer frae your body!” 

Jimmy rolled over again. This time he was gone so far 
that Dannie was frightened into a panic, and called the 
doctor coming up the lane to Jimmy before he had time 
to see Mary. The doctor soon brought Jimmy around, 
prescribed quiet and sleep; talked about heart trouble de- 


156 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

veloping, and symptoms of tremens, while Dannie poured 
on water, and gritted his teeth. 

It ended by Jimmy being helped to Dannie’s cabin, un- 
dressed, and put into bed, then Dannie went over to see 
what he could do for the nurse. She looked at him search- 
ingly. 

“Mr. Macnoun, when were you last asleep?” she asked. 

“I forget,” answered Dannie. 

“When did you last have a good hot meal?” 

“I dinna know,” replied Dannie. 

“Drink that,” said the nurse, handing him the bowl of 
broth she carried, and going back to the stove for another. 
“When I have finished making Mrs. Malone comfortable. 
I’m going to get you something to eat, and you are going to 
eat it. Then you must lie down on that cot where I can 
call you if I need you, and sleep six hours, and then you’re 
going to wake up and watch by this door while I sleep my 
six. Even nurses must have some rest, you know.” 

“Ye first,” said Dannie. “I’ll be all richt when I get 
food. Since ye mention it, I believe I am almost mad 
with hunger.” 

The nurse handed him another bowl of broth. “Just 
drink that, and drink slowly,” she said, as she left the 
room. 

Dannie could hear her speaking gently to Mary; then all 
was quiet, and the girl came out and closed the door. She 
deftly prepared food for Dannie. He ate all she would 
allow him, and begged for more; but she firmly told him 
her hands were full now, and she had no one to depend on 
save him to watch after the turn of the night. 


THE HEART OF MARY MALONE 157 

So Dannie lay down on the cot. He had barely touched 
It when he thought of Jimmy, so he got up quietly and 
started home. He had almost reached his back door 
when it opened, and Jimmy came out. Dannie paused, 
amazed at Jimmy^s wild face and staring eyes. 

‘‘Don’t you begin your cursed gibberish again,” cried 
Jimmy, at sight of him. “Fm burning in all the tortures 
of fire now, and Fll have a drink if I smash down Casey’s 
and steal it.” 

Dannie jumped for him, but Jimmy evaded him and 
fled. Dannie started after. He had reached the barn 
before he began to think. “I depend on you,” the nurse 
had said. “Jimmy, wait!” he called. “Jimmy, have ye 
any money?” Jimmy was running along the path toward 
town. Dannie stopped. He stood staring after Jimmy 
for a second, then he deliberately turned, went back, and 
lay down on the cot, where the nurse expected to find him 
when she wanted him to watch beside the door of Mary 
Malone, 


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THE APPLE OF DISCORD 



CHAPTER VII 
The Apple of Discord 


W HAT do you think about fishing, Dannie?’’ 
asked Jimmy Malone. 

‘‘Therewasalicht frost last nicht,” said Dan- 
nie. ^Ht begins to look that way. I should think a week 
more, especially if there should come a guid rain.” 

Jimmy appeared disappointed. His last trip to town 
had ended in a sodden week in the barn, or at Dannie’s 
cabin. For the first time he had carried whiskey home 
with him. He had insisted on Dannie drinking with him, 
and wanted to fight when he would not. He addressed 
the bottle and Dannie as the Sovereign Alchemist by turns, 
and ‘‘transmuted the leaden metal of life into the pure 
gold” of a glorious drunk, until his craving was satisfied. 
Then he came back to reason and work one morning, and 
by the time Mary was well enough to notice him, he was 
Jimmy at his level best; doing more than he had in years to 
try to interest and please her. 

Mary had fully recovered; she appeared as strong as she 
ever had been, but there was a noticeable change in her. 
She talked and laughed with a gayety that seemed forced, 
then in the midst of it her tongue turned bitter, so that 
Jimmy and Dannie fled before it. 

The gray hairs multiplied on Dannie’s head with rapid- 
161 


i 62 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 


ity. He had gone to the doctor, also to Mary’s sister, and 
learned nothing more than the nurse could tell him. Dan- 
nie was willing to undertake anything in the world for 
Mary, but just how to furnish the ‘Vital spark,” to an 
unborn babe was too big a problem for him. Jimmy Ma- 
lone was growing to be another. 

Heretofore, Dannie had borne the brunt of the work, 
and all of the worry. He had let Jimmy feel that his w^as 
the guiding hand. Jimmy’s plans were followed whenever 
it was possible; when it was not, Dannie started Jimmy’s 
way, then gradually worked around to his own. But 
there never had been a time between them, when things 
really came to a crisis, and Dannie took the lead, saying 
matters must go a certain way, that Jimmy had not ac- 
ceded. In reality, Dannie always had been master. 

Now he was not. Where he lost control he did not 
know. He had tried several times to return to the subject 
.♦f how to bring back happiness to Mary, but Jimmy im- 
mediately developed symptoms of another attack of heart 
disease, a tendency to start for town, or openly defied him 
by walking away. Yet, Jimmy kept closer to him than he 
ev^er had, absolutely refusing to go anywhere, or to do the 
smallest piece of work alone. Sometimes he grew sullen 
and morose when he was not drinking, which was very 
unlike the gay Jimmy. Sometimes he grew wildly hilari- 
ous, as if he were determined to make such a racket that 
he could hear no sound save his own voice. As long as he 
stayed at home, helped with the work, and made an effort 
to please Mary, Dannie hoped for the best, but his hopes 
never grew so bright that they shut out an awful fear thsi 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


163 

was beginning to loom in the future. He tried in ever)^ 
way to encourage Jimmy, to help him in the struggle he 
did not understand; so when he saw that Jimmy was dis- 
appointed about the fishing, he suggested that he should 
go alone. 

“I guess not!’" said Jimmy. rather go to con- 

^ssion than to go alone. What’s the fun of fishin’ alone? 
All the fun there is to fishin’ is to watch the other fellow’s 
eyes when you pull in a big one, and try to hide yours 
from him when he gets it. I guess not! What have we 
got to do ? ” 

‘‘Finish cutting the corn, and get in the pumpkins be- 
fore there comes frost enough to hurt them.” 

“Well, come along!” said Jimmy. “Let’s get it over. 
I’m going to begin fishing for that Bass the morning after 
the first black frost, if I do go alone. I mean it ! ” 

“But ye said ” began Dannie. 

“Hagginy!” cried Jimmy. “What a lot of time you’ve 
wasted if youVe been kaping account of all the things 
I’ve said. Haven’t you learned by this time that I lie 
twice to the truth once ? ” 

Dannie laughed. “Dinna say such things, Jimmy. I 
hate to hear ye. Of course, I know about the fifty coons 
of the Canoper, and things like that; honest, I dinna be- 
lieve ye can help it. But na man need lie about a serious 
matter, and when he knows he is deceiving another who 
crusts him.” Jimmy became so white that he felt the 
colour receding, and turned to hide his face. “Of course, 
about those fifty coons noo, what was the harm in that? 
Nobody believed it. ^ That wasna deceiving any ane.” 


i 64 at the foot OF THE RAINBOW 

“Yes, but it was,” answered Jimmy. “The Boston 
man belaved it, and I guiss he hasn’t forgiven me, if he 
did take my hand, and drink with me. You know I 
haven’t had a word from him about that coon skin. I 
worked awful hard on that skin. Some way, I tried to 
make it say to him again that I was sorry for that night’s 
work. Sometimes I am afraid I killed the fellow.” 

“0-ho!” scolFed Dannie. “Men ain’t so easy killed. 
I been thinkin’ about it, too, and I’ll tell ye what I think. 
I think he goes on long trips, and only gets home every’’ 
four or five months. The package would have to wait. 
His folks wouldna try to send it after him. He was a 
monly fellow, all richt, and ye will hear fra him yet.” 

“I’d like to,” said Jimmy, absently, beating across his 
palm a spray of goldenrod he had broken. “Just a line 
to tell me that he don’t bear malice.” 

“Ye will get it,” said Dannie. “Have a little patience. 
But that’s your greatest fault, Jimmy. Ye never did 
have ony patience.” 

“Don’t begin on me faults again,” snapped Jimmy. “I 
reckon I know me faults about as well as the nixt fellow. 
I’m so domn full of faults that I’ve thought a lot lately 
about fillin’ up, and takin’ a sleep on the railroad.” 

A new fear wrung Dannie’s soul. “Ye never would, 
Jimmy,” he implored. 

“Sure not!” cried Jimmy. “I’m no good Catholic 
livin’, but if it come to dyin’, bedad I niver could face it 
without first confissin’ to the praste, and that would give 
the game away. Let’s cut out dyin’, and cut corn 1 ” 

“That’s richt,” agreed Dannie. “And let’s work like 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


165 

men, and then fish fra a week or so, before ice and trap- 
ping time comes again. Til wager I can beat ye the first 
row.’^ 

‘‘Bate!’^ scoffed Jimmy. ‘‘Bate! With them club- 
footed fingers of yours? You couIdn^t bate an egg. Just 
watch me! If you are enough of a watch to keep your 
hands runnin’ at the same time.’^ 

Jimmy worked feverishly for an hour; and then he 
straightened and looked around him. On the left lay 
the river, its shores bordered with trees and bushes. Be- 
hind them was deep wood. Before them lay their open 
fields, sloping down to the bottom, the cabins on one side, 
and the kingfisher embankment on the other. There 
was a smoky haze in the air. As always the blackbirds 
clamoured beside the river. Some crows followed the 
workers at a distance, hunting for grains of corn, while in 
the woods, a chewink scratched -and rustled among the 
deep leaves as it searched for grubs. From time to time 
a flock of quail arose before them with a whirr and scat- 
tered down the fields, reassembling later at the call of their 
leader, from a rider of the snake fence, which inclosed the 
field. 

“Bob, Bob White,^^ whistled Dannie. 

“Bob, Bob White,’^ answered the quail. 

“I got my eye on that fellow,’’ said Jimmy. “When 
be grows a little larger. I’m going after him.” 

“Seems an awful pity to kill him,” said Dannie. “Peo- 
ple rave over the lark, but I vow I’d miss the quail most 
if they were both gone. They are getting scarce.” 

“Well, I didn’t say I was going to kill the whole flock, 


i66 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

saiJ JiiTimy. ‘‘I was just going to kill a few for Mary, 
and if I don’t, somebody else will.” 

^‘Mary dinna need onything better than ane of her own 
fried chickens,” said Dannie. ‘‘And it’s no true about 
hunters. We’ve the riyer on ane side, and the bluff on 
the other. If yyt keep up our fishing signs, add hunting 
to them, and juist shut the other fellows out, the birds 
will come here like everything wild gathers in National 
Park, out West. Ye bet things know where they are 
taken care of, well enpugfid’ 

Jimmy snipped a spray of purple irpnwort with his 
corn-cutter, sticking it through his suspender buckle. 

“I think that would be more fun than killin’ them. If 
you’re a dacint shot, and your gun is clape” (Jimmy re- 
membered the crow that had escaped with the eggs at 
soap-making), “you pretty well know you’re goin’ to bring 
down anything yqu aim at. But it wquld be a dandy joke 
to shell a little corn as we husk it, and toll all the quail 
into Rainbow Bpttqm, and then kape the other fellows 
out. Bedad! Let’s do it.” 

Jimrny addressed the quail: 

‘‘Quailie, quailie on the fince, 

We think your singin’s just imminse. 

Stay right here, and live with us, 

And the fellow that shoots you will strike a fuss.’’ 

'‘We can protect them all richt enough,” laughed Dan- 
nie. “And when the snow comes we can feed Cardinals 
like cheekens. Wish when we threshed, we’d saved a few 
sheaves of wheat. They do that in Germany, ye know. 
The last sheaf of the harvest they put up on a long pole at 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 167 

Christmas, as a thank-offering to the birds fra their care 
of the crops. My father often told of it.” 

“That would be great,” said Jimmy. “Now look how 
domn slow you are! Why didn’t you mintion it at har-* 
vest? I’d like things cornin’ for me to take care of them. 
Gee! Makes me feel important just to think about it, 
Nixt year we’ll do it, sure. They’d be a lot of company. 
A man could work in this field to-day> with all the flowers 
around him, and the colours of the leaves like a garden, 
and a lot of birds talkin’ to him, and no*t feel afraid of 
being alone.” 

Afraid ? ” quoted Dannie, in ama2!ement. 

For an instant Jimmy seemed startled. Then his love?; 
of proving his point arose. ‘‘Yes, afraid!” he repeated^ 
stubbornly. “Afraid of being away from the sound of a 
human voice, because whin you aie, the voices of the black 
'divils of conscience come twistin’ up from the ground in a. 
little wiry whisper, and moanin’ among the trees, and 
whistlin’ in the wind, and rollin’ in the thunder, and above- 
'"all in the dark they screech, and shout, and roar, ‘We’re 
after you, Jimmy Malone! We’ve almost got you, Jimmy 
Malone! You’re going to burn in hell, Jimmy Malone!’^* 
Jimmy leaned toward Dannie, beginning in a low voice> 
ibut he grew so excited as he tried to picture his torture 
that he ended in a scream, and even then Dannie’s horrified 
eyes failed to recall him. Jimmy straightened, stared 
wildly behind him, then over the open, hazy field, where 
flowers bloomed, birds called, and the long rows of shocks 
stood unconscious spectators of the strange scene. He 
lifted his hat, wiping the perspiration from his dripping 


i68 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

face with the sleeve of his shirt, and as he raised his arm, 
-the corn-cutter flashed in the light. 

“My God, it’s awful, Dannie! It’s so awful, I can’t 
begin to tell you!” 

Dannie’s face was ashen. 

“Jimmy, dear auld fellow,” he said, “how long has 
this been going on ? ” 

“A million years,” said Jimmy, shifting the corn-cuttt." 
to the hand that held his hat, that he might moisten his 
fingers with saliva and rub it across his parched lips. 

“Jimmy, dear,” Dannie’s hand was on Jimmy’s sleeve. 
“Have ye been to town in the nicht, or anything like that 
lately?” 

“No, Dannie, dear, I ain’t,” sneered Jimmy, setting 
jhis hat on the back of his head while he tested the corn- 
cutter with his thumb. “This ain’t Casey’s, me lad. 
I’ve no more call there, at this minute, than you have.” 

“It is Casey’s, juist the same,” said Dannie bitterly. 
““ Dinna ye know the end of this sort of thing ? ” 

“No, bedad, I don’t!” said Jimmy. “If I knew any 
way to ind it, you can bet I’ve had enough. I’d ind it, 
if I knew how. But the railroad wouldn’t be the ind. 
That would just be the beginnin’. Keep close to me, 
Dannie, and talk, for mercy sake, talk! Do you think 
we can finish the corn by noon ? ” 

“Let’s try!” said Dannie, as he squared his shoulders 
to adjust them to his new load. “Then we’ll get in the 
’"ampkins this afternoon; bury the potatoes, cabbage and 
sturnips, and then we’re aboot fixed fra winter.” 

“We must take one day, and gather our nuts,” suggested 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 169 

Jimmy, struggling to make his voice sound natural, ‘^and 
you forgot the apples. We must bury thim too.’^ 

‘‘That’s so,” said Dannie, “and when that’s over, we’ll 
hae nothing left to do but catch the Bass, and say farewell 
to the Kingfisher.” 

“I’ve already told you that I would relave you of all re- 
sponsibility about the Bass,” said Jimmy, “and when I do, 
you won’t need trouble to make your adieus to the King- 
fisher of the Wabash. He’ll be one bird that won’t be 
migrating this winter.” 

Dannie tried to laugh. “I’d like fall as much as any 
season of the year,” he said, “if it wasna for winter coming 
next.” 

“I thought you liked winter, and the trampin’ in the 
white woods, and trappin’, and the long evenings with a 
book.” 

“I do,” said Dannie. “I must have been thinkin’ of 
Mary. She hated last winter so. Of course, I had to go 
home when ye were away, and the nichts were so long, and 
so cold, and mony of them alone. I wonder if we canna 
arrange fra one of her sister’s girls to stay with her this 
winter?” 

“What’s the matter with me?” asked Jimmy. 

“Nothing, if only ye’d stay,” answered Dannie. 

“All I’ll be out of nights, you could put in one eye,” said 
Jimmy. “I went last winter, and before, because whin 
they clamoured too loud I could be drivin’ out the divils 
that way, for a while, and you always came for me, but 
even that won’t be stopping it now. I wouldn’t stick my 
head out alone after dark, not if I was dying!” 


ryo AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“Jimmy, ye never felt that way before,” said Dannie. 
“Tell me what happened this summer to start ye.” 

“Tve done a domn sight of faleing that you didn’t know 
anything about,” answered Jimmy. “I could work it off 
at Casey’s for a while, but this summer things sort of came 
to a head, and I saw meself for fair, and before God, Dan- 
nie, I didn’t like me looks.” 

“Well, then, I like your looks,” said Dannie. “Ye are 
the best company I ever was in. Ye are the only mon I 
ever knew that I cared fra, and I care fra ye so much, I 
havna the way to tell ye how much. You’re possessed 
with a damn fool idea, Jimmy, and ye got to shake it off. 
Such a great-hearted, big mon as ye! I winna have itl 
There’s the dinner bell, and richt glad I am of it ! ” 

That afternoon when pumpkin gathering was over and 
Jimmy had invited Mary out to separate the “punk” from 
the pumpkins, there was a wagon-load of good ones they 
would not need for their use. Dannie proposed to take 
them to town and sell them. To his amazement Jimmy 
refused to go along. 

“ I told you this morning that Casey wasn’t calling me at 
prisint,” he said, “and whin I am not called I’d best not 
answer. I have promised Mary to top the onions and 
bury the celery, and murder the bates.” 

“Do what wi’ the beets.?” inquired the puzzled Dannie. 

“Kill thim! Kill thim stone dead. I’m too tinder- 
hearted to be burying anything but a dead bate, Dannie. 
That’s a thousand years old, but laugh, like I knew you 
would, old Ramphirinkus! No, thank you, I don’t go to 
town!” 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


171 

Then Dannie was scared. ‘‘He s going to be dreadfullj 
aeek or go mad/’ he said. 

So he drove to the village, sold the pumpkins, filled 
Mary’s order for groceries, and then went to the doctor, to 
tell him of Jimmy’s latest developments. 

“It is the drink,” said that worthy disciple of Esculap^ 
ius. “It’s the drink! In time it makes a fool sodden and 
a bright man mad. Few men have sufficient brains to go 
crazy. Jimmy has. He must stop the drink.” 

On the street, Dannie encountered Father Michael. 
The priest stopped him to shake hands. 

“How’s Mary Malone?” he asked. 

“She is quite well noo,” answered Dannie, “but she is na 
happy. I live so close, and see so much, I know. I’ve 
thought of ye lately. I have thought of coming to see ye. 
I’m na of your religion, but Mary is, and what suits her is 
guid enough for me. I’ve tried to think of everything 
under the sun that might help, and among other things I’ve 
thought of ye. Jimmy was confirmed in ur church, and 
he was more or less regular up to his marriage.” 

“Less, Mr. Macnoun, much less!” said the priest. 
“Since, not at all. Why do you ask?” 

“He is sick,” said Dannie. “He drinks a guid deal. 
He has been reckless aboot sleeping on the ground, and noo, 
if ye will make this confidential?” — the priest nodded — 
“he is talking aboot sleeping on the railroad, and he’s 
having delusions. There are devils after him. He is the 
finest fellow ye ever knew, Father Michael. WeVe been 
friends all our lives. Ye have had much experience with 
piep; and it ought to count fra something. From all ye 


172 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

know, and what Fve told ye, could his trouble be cured as 
the doctor suggests?'’ 

The priest did a queer thing. ^‘You know him as no 
living man, Dannie," he said. *‘What do you think?" 

Dannie’s big hands slowly opened and closed. Then he 
fell to polishing the nails of one hand on the palm of the 
other. At last he answered, ^'If ye’d asked me that this 
time last year. I’d have said St’s the drink,’ at a jump. 
But times this summer, this morning, for instance, when he 
hadna a drop in three weeks, and dinna want ane, when he 
could have come wi’ me to town, and wouldna, and there 
were devils calling him from the ground, and the trees, and 
the sky, out in the open cornfield, it looked bad." 

The priest’s eyes were boring into Dannie’s sick face. 

^^How did it look?" he asked briefly. 

^Tt looked," said Dannie, and his voice dropped to a 
whisper, ‘St looked like he might carry a damned ugly 
secret, that it would be better fra him if ye, at least, 
knew." 

“And the nature of that secret?" 

Dannie shook his head. 

“Couldna give a guess at it! Known him all his life. 
My only friend. Always been togither. Square a mon as 
God ever made. There’s na fault in him, if he’d let drink 
alone. Got more faith in him than any ane I ever knew. 
I wouldna trust mon on God’s footstool, if I had to lose 
faith in Jimmy. Come to think of it, that ‘secret’ busi- 
ness is all old woman’s scare. The drink is telling on him. 
If only he could be cured of that awful weakness, all heaven 
would come down and settle in Rainbow Bottom." 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


173 

They shook hands and parted without Dannie realizing 
that he had told all he knew while he had learned nothing. 
Then he entered the post office for the weekly mail. He 
called for Malone’s papers also, and with them came a slip 
from the express office notifying Jimmy there was a pack- 
age for him. Dannie went to see if they would let him 
have it. As Jimmy lived in the country, and as they were 
known to be partners, Dannie was allowed to sign the book, 
and carry away a long, slender, wooden box, with a Boston 
tag. 

The Thread Man had sent Jimmy a present. From the 
appearance of the box, Dannie made up his mind that it 
was a cane. 

Straightway he drove home at a scandalous rate of 
speed. On the way, he dressed Jimmy in a broadcloth 
suit, patent leathers, and a silk hat. Then he took him to 
a gold cure, where he learned to abhor whiskey in a week, 
then to the priest, to whom he confessed that he had lied 
about the number of coons in the Canoper. 

So peace brooded in Rainbow Bottom, and all of them 
were happy again. For with the passing of summer, Dan- 
nie had learned that heretofore there had been happiness 
of a sort, for them, and that if they could all return to the 
old footing it would be well, or at least far better than at 
present. With Mary’s tongue dripping gall, her sweet 
face souring, and Jimmy hearing devils, no wonder poor 
Dannie overheated his team in a race to carry a package 
that promised to furnish some diversion. 

Jimmy and Mary heard the racket, and standing on the 
celery hill, they saw Dannie come clattering up the lane. 


174 at the foot of THE RALMBOW 

When he noticed them, he stood in the wagon, waving the 
package over his head. 

Jimmy straightened with a flourish, stuck the spade in 
the celery hill, and descended with great deliberation. 

‘H mintioned to Dannie this morning,’^ he said, ‘^that 
it wa§ about time I was bearin’ from the Thrid Man.” 

^^Oh! Do you suppose it is something from Boston.?” 
The eagerness in Mary’s voice made it sound almost girlish 
again. 

*‘Hunt the hatchet!” ordered Jimmy, walking very 
leisurely into the cabin. 

Dannie was visibly excited as he entered. think ye 
have heard from the Thread Mon,” he said, handing 
Jimmy the package. 

Jimmy took it, examining it carefully. He never be- 
fore in his life had an express package, the contents of 
which he did not know. It behooved him to get all there 
was out of the pride and the joy of it. 

Mary laid down the hatchet so closely it touched 
Jimmy’s hand, to remind him. ‘‘Now what do you sup- 
pose he has sent you.?” she inquired eagerly, her hand 
straying toward the package. 

Jimmy tested the box. “It don’t weigh much,” he said, 
“but one end of it’s the heaviest.” 

He set the hatchet in a tiny crack, with one rip stripping 
off the cover. Inside lay a long, brown leather case, with 
buckles, and in one end a little leather case, flat on 
pne side, rounding on the other, and it, too, fastened with 
^ buckle. 

Jimmy caught sight of a paper book folded in the bottom 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


I7S 

of the box, as he lifted the c::se. With trembling fingers 
he unfastened the buckles, and disclosed a cover of leather, 
sewn in four divisions, from top to bottom, and from thej 
largest of these protruded a shining object. Jimmy caught 
this, and began to draw, while the shine began to lengthen. 

‘‘Just what I thought!” exclaimed Dannie. “He’s 
sent ye a fine cane.” 

“A hint to kape out of the small of his back the nixt 
time he goes promenadin’ on a cow-kitcher! The divill” 
exploded Jimmy. 

His quick eyes had caught a word on the cover of th^. 
little book in the bottom of the box. 

“A cane! A cane! Look at that, will ye?” He 
flashed six inches of grooved silvery handle before their 
faces, then three feet of shining black steel, scarcely 
thicker than a lead pencil. “Cane!” he cried scornfully. 
Then he picked up the box, and opening it drew out a little 
machine that shone like a silver watch, and setting it 
agpinst the handle, slipped a small slide over each end, so 
It held firmly, and shone bravely. 

“Oh, Jimmy, what is it ? ” cried Mary. 

“Me cane!” answered Jimmy. “Me new cane from 
Boston. Didn’t you hear Dannie sayin’ what it was? 
This little arrangemint is my cicly-meter, like they put on 
wheels, and buggies now, to tell how far you’ve travelled. 
The way this works, I just tie this silk thrid to me door 
knob and off* I walks, it a reeling out behind, and whin I 
turn back it takes up as 1 come, and whin I get home I 
take the yardstick and measure me string, and be the same 
token, it tells me how far I’ve travelled/’ A? be talked b§ 


176 AT The foot of the rainbow 

drew out another shining length and added it to the first, 
then another and a last, fine as a wheat straw. “These 
last jints I’m adding,” he explained to Mary, “are so that 
if I have me cane whin I’m riding I can stritch it out and 
touch up me horses with it. And betimes, if I should iver 
break me old cane fish pole, I could take this down to the 
river, and there, the books call it ‘whipping the water.’ 
See! Cane, begorra! It’s the Jim-dandiest little fishing 
rod anybody in these parts iver set eyes on. Lord I What 
a beauty!” 

He turned to Dannie shaking the shining, slender thing 
before his envious eyes. 

“Who gets the Black Bass now?” he triumphed in tones 
of utter conviction. 

There is no use in taking time to explain to any fisher- 
man who has read thus far that Dannie, the patient; 
Dannie, the long-suffering, felt abused. How would you 
have felt yourself? 

“The Thread Man might have sent twa,” was his 
thought. “The only decent treatment he got that nicht 
was frae me, and if I’d let Jimmy hit him, he’d gone 
through the wall. But there never is anything fra me ! ” 

That was true. There never was. 

Aloud he said: “Dinna bother to hunt the steelyards, 
Mary. We winna weigh it until he brings it home.” 

“Yes, and by gum. I’ll bring it with this! Look, here 
is a picture of a man in a boat, pullin’ in a whale with a pole 
just like this,” bragged Jimmy. 

“Yes,” said Dannie. “That’s what it’s made for : a boat 
and open water. If ye are going to fish wi’ that thing 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


m 

along the river we’ll have to cut doon all the trees, and 
that will dry up the water. That’s na for river fishing.” 

Jimmy was intently studying the book. Mary tried to 
take the rod from his hand. , 

“Let be!” he cried, hanging on. “You’ll break it!” 

“I guess steel don’t break so easy,” she said aggrievedly. 
“I just wanted to ‘heft’ it.” 

“Light as a feather,” boasted Jimmy. “Fish all day 
and it won’t tire a man at all. Done — unjoint it and put 
it in its case, and not go dragging up everything along the 
bank like a living stump-puller. This book says this line 
will bear twinty pounds pressure, and sometimes it’s taken 
an hour to tire out a fish, if it’s a fighter. I bet you the 
Black Bass is a fighter, from what we know of him.” 

“Ye can watch me land him and see what ye think 
about it,” suggested Dannie. 

Jimmy held the book with one hand, lightly waving the 
rod with the other in a way that would have developed 
nerves in an Indian. He laughed absently. 

“With me shootln’ bait all over his pool with this?” 
he asked. “ I guess not ! ” 

“ But you can’t fish for the Bass with that, Jimmy Ma- 
lone,” cried Mary hotly. “You agreed to fish fair for 
the Bass, and it wouldn’t be fair for you to use that, whin 
Dannie only has his old cane pole. Dannie, buy you a 
steel pole, too,” she begged. 

“If Jimmy is going to fish with that, there will be all 
the more glory in taking the Bass from him with the pole 
I have,” answered Dannie. 

“You keep out,” cried Jimmy angrily to Mary. “It . 


178 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

was a fair bargain. He made it himself. Each man was 
to fish surface or deep, and with his own pole and bait. I 
guess this is my pole, ain’t it ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mary. “But it wasn’t yours whin you 
made that agreemint. You very well know Dannie ex- 
pected you to fish with the same kind of pole and bait 
that he did; didn’t you, Dannie?” 

“Yes,” said Dannie, “I did: because I never dreamed 
of him havin’ any other. But since he has it, I think he’s 
in his rights if he fishes with it. I dinna care. In the 
first place he will only scare the Bass away from him with 
the racket that reel will make, and in the second, if he 
tries to land it with that thing, he will smash it, and lose 
the fish. There’s a long-handled net to land things with 
that goes with those rods. He’d better sent ye one. Now 
you’ll have to jump into the river and land a fish by hand 
if ye hook it.” 

“That’s true! ” cried Mary. “Flere’s one in a picture.” 

She had snatched the book from Jimmy. He snatched 
it back. 

“Be careful, you’ll tear that!” he cried. “I was just 
going to say that I would get some fine wire or mosquito 
bar and make one.” 

Dannie’s fingers were itching to take the rod, if only 
for an instant. He looked at it longingly. But Jimmy 
was impervious. He whipped it softly and eagerly read 
from the book. 

“Tells here about a man takin’ a fish that weighed 
forty pounds with a pole just like this,” he announced, 
“Scat ! Jumpin’ Jehosophat ! What do you think of that ! ’* 


THE APPLE OF DISCORD 


179 


^XouldnT you fish turn about with it?’^ inquired Mary. 

‘‘Na, we couldna fish turn about with it/’ answered 
Dannie. “Na with, that pole. Jimmy would throw a 
£t if anybody else touched it. And he’s welcome to it. 
He never in this world will catch the Black Bass with it. 
If I only had some way to put juist fifteen feet more line 
on my pole, I’d show him how to take the Bass to-morrow. 
The way we always have come to lose it is with too short 
lines. We have to try to land it before it’s tired out and 
:it’s strong enough to break and tear away. It must have 
ragged jaws and a dozen pieces of line hanging to it, fra 
both of us have hooked it time and again. When it strikes 
me, if I only could give it fifteen feet more line, I could 
land it.” 

‘‘Can’t you fix some way?” asked Mary. 

“I’ll try,” answered Dannie. 

“And in the manetime. I’d just be givin’ it twinty off 
me dandy little reel, and away goes me with Mr. Bass,” 
said Jimmy. “I must take it to town and have its picture 
took to sind the Thrid Man.” 

That was the last straw. Dannie had given up being 
allowed to touch the rod; he was on his way to unhitch his 
team and begin the evening work. The day had been 
trying. For the moment everything culminated in the 
fact that his longing fingers had not touched that beautiful 
:fishing rod. 

“The Boston man forgot another thing,” he said. “The 
Dude who shindys ’round with those things in pictures, 
wears a damn, dinky, little pleated coat!” 



WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 


CHAPTER VIII 
When the Black Bass Struck 


'Tots of fish down in the brook. 

All you need is a rod, and a line, and a hook,^ 


H ummed jimmy, stlll lovingly fingering hi« 
possessions. 

‘‘ Did Dannie iver say a thing like that to you 
before asked Mary. 

^‘Oh, he’s dead sore,^^ explained Jimmy. "He thinks 
he should have had a jinted rod, too.” 

"And so he should,” replied Mary. "You said yoursilf 
that you might have killed that man if Dannie hadn’t 
showed you that you were wrong.” 

"You must think stuff like this is got at the tin-cint 
store,” said Jimmy. 

"Oh, no I don’t!” said Mary. "I expect it cost three 
or four dollars.” 

"Three or four dollars,” sneered Jimmy. "All the sinse 
a woman has I Feast your eyes on this book and rade that 
just this little reel alone cost fifteen, so there’s no telling 
what the rod is worth. Why it’s turned right out of pure 
steel, same as if it were wood. Look for yoursilf.” 

"Thanks, no! I’m most afraid to touch it,” said 
Mary. 

"Oh, you are sore tool” laughed Jimmy. "With all 


184 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

that money in it, I should think you could see why I 
wouldn’t want it broke.” 

"^WouVe sat there and whipped it around for an hour. 
Would it break it for me or Dannie to do the same thing? 
If it had been his, you’d have had a worm on it and been 
down to the river trying it for him by now.” 

^‘Worm!” scoffed Jimmy. ‘‘A worm! That’s a good 
one! Idjit! You don’t fish with worms with a jinted rod.” 

Well what do you fish with ? Humming birds ? ” 

^‘No. You fish with ” Jimmy stopped and eyed 

Mary dubiously. You fish with a lot of things,” he con- 
tinued. ‘‘Some of thim come in little books and they look 
like moths, and some like snake-faders, and some of them 
are buck-tail and bits of tin, painted to look shiny. Once 
there was a man in town who had a minnie made of rubber 
and all painted up just like life. There were hooks on its 
head, and on its back, and its belly, and its tail, so’s that if 
a fish snapped at it anywhere it got hooked.” 

“I should say so!” exclaimed Mary. “It’s no fair way 
to fish, to use more than one hook. You might just as 
well take a net and wade in and seine out the fish as to take 
a lot of hooks and rake thim out.” 

“Well, who’s going to ‘take a lot of hooks and rake thim 
out?”’ 

“I didn’t say anybody was. I was just saying it 
Wouldn’t be fair to the fish if they did.” 

“’Course I wouldn’t fish with no riggin’ like that, when 
Dannie only has one old hook. Whin we fish for the Bass, 
I won’t use but one hook either. All the same. I’m going 
to have some of those fancy baits. I’m going to get Jim 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 185 

Skeels at the drug store to order thim for me. I know 
just how you do/’ said Jimmy, flourishing the rod. You 
put on your bait and quite a heavy sinker, and you wind 
it up to the ind of your rod, and thin you stand up in your 
boat ” 

“‘Stand up in your boat!”’ 

“I wish you’d let me finish! — or on the bank, and you 
take this little whipper-snapper, and you touch the spot 
on the reel that relases the thrid, and you give the rod ^ 
little toss, aisy as throwin’ away chips, and oflF maybe fifty 
feet your bait hits the water, ‘spat!’ and ‘snap!’ goes Mr* 
Bass, and ‘stick!’ goes the hook. See?” 

“What I see is that if you want to fish that way in the 
Wabash, you’ll have to wait until the dredge goes through 
and they make a canal out of it; for be the time you’d 
throwed fifty feet, and your fish had run another fifty, 
there’d be just one hundred snags, and logs, and stumps be- 
tween you; one for every foot of the way. It must look 
pretty on deep water, where it can be done right, but I bet 
anything that if you go to fooling with that on our river, 
Dannie gets the Bass.” 

“Not much, Dannie don’t ‘gets the Bass,’” said Jimmy 
confidently. “Just you come out here and let me show you 
how this works. Now you see, I put me sinker on the ind 
of the thrid, no hook of course, for practice, and I touch 
this little spring here, and give me little rod a whip and 
away goes me bait, slick as grase. Mr. Bass is layin’ in 
thim bass weeds right out there, foreninst the pie-plant 
bed, and the bait strikes the water at the idge, see! and 
‘snap,’ he takes it and sails off* slow, to swally it at leisure. 


sB6 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


Here’s where I don’t pull a morsel. Jist let him rin and 
.Bwally, and whin me line is well out and he has me bait all 
idigistid, ‘yank,’ I give him the round-up, and thin, the fun 
begins. He leps clear of the water and I see he’s tin pound. 
If he tins from me, I give him rope, and if he rins to, I dig 
in, workin’ me little machane for dear life to take up the 
thrid before it slacks. Whin he sees me, he makes a dash 
back, and I just got to relase me line and let him go, be- 
cause he’d bust this little silk thrid all to thunder if I tried 
to force him onpleasant to his intintions, and so we kape it 
up until he’s plum wore out and comes a promenadin’ up to 
me boat, bank I mane, and I scoops him in, and that’s 
-sport, Mary! That’s man’s fishin’l Now watch! He’s 
in thim bass weeds before the pie-plant like I said, and 
I’m here on the bank, and I think he’s there, so I give me 
little jinted rod a whip and a swing ” 

Jimmy gave the rod a whip and a swing. The sinker 
shot in air, struck the limb of an apple tree and wound a 
dozen times around it. Jimmy said things and Mary 
giggled. She also noticed that Dannie had stopped work 
and was standing in the bam door watching intently. 
Jimmy climbed the tree, unwound the line and tried 
again. 

“I didn’t notice that domn apple limb sticking out 
there,” he said. “Now you watch! Right out there 
among the bass weeds foreninst the pie-plant ” 

To avoid another limb, Jimmy aimed too low so the 
sinker shot under the well platform not ten feet from him. 

“Lucky you didn’t get fast in the bass weeds,” said 
-JVIary as Jimmy reeled in. 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 187 

“Will, I got to get me range,” explained Jimmy. “This 
time ” 

Jimmy swung too high. The spring slipped from under" 
his unaccustomed thumb. The sinker shot above and be- 
hind him, becoming entangled in the eaves, while yards of 
the fine silk line flew off the spinning reel dropping in 
tangled masses at his feet. In an effort to do something 
Jimmy reversed the reel, then wound back on tangles and 
all until it became completely clogged. Mary had sat 
down on the back steps to watch the exhibition. Now, she ; 
stood up to laugh. 

“And that's just what will happen to you at the river,”' 
she said. “While you are foolin’ with that thing, which^ 
ain’t for rivers, and which you don’t know beans about: 
handlin’, Dannie will haul in the Bass, and serve you right,, 
too!” 

“Mary,” said Jimmy, “I niver struck ye in all me life, 
but if ye don’t go in the house, and shut up. I’ll knock the 
head off ye!” 

“I wouldn’t be advi^n’ you to,” she said. **Dannie is 
watching you.” 

Jimmy glanced toward the bam in time to see Dannie’s 
shaking shoulders as he turned from the door. With un- 
expected patience, he firmly closed his lips and went to 
bring a ladder. By the time he had the sinker loose and^ 
the line untangled, supper was ready. By the time he had^. 
mastered the reel, and could land the sinker accurately inj 
front of various imaginary beds of bass weeds, Dannie had.'< 
finished the night work in both stables and gone home. . 
But his back door stood open and therefrom protruded the • 


188 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


point of a long, heavy cane fish pole. By the light of a 
lamp on his table, Dannie could be seen working with 
pincers and a ball of wire. 

“I wonder what he thinks he can do?” said Jimmy. 

“I suppose he is trying to fix some way to get that 
fifteen feet more line he needs,” replied Mary. 

When they went to bed the light still burned while the 
broad shoulders of Dannie bent over the pole. Mary had 
fallen asleep, but she was awakened by Jimmy slipping 
from bed. He went to the window to look toward Dan- 
nie’s cabin. Then he left the bedroom and she could hear 
him crossing to the back window of the next room. Then 
came a smothered laugh and he softly called her. She 
went to him. 

Dannie’s figure stood out clear and strong in the moon- 
light, in his wood-yard. His black outline looked unusu- 
ally powerful in the silvery ■vtrhiteness surrounding it. 

He held his fishing pole in both hands and swept a circle 
around him that would have required considerable space 
on Lake Michigan, making a cast toward the barn. The 
line ran out smoothty and evenly, while through the gloom 
Mary saw Jimmy’s figure straighten and his lips close in 
surprise. Then Dannie began taking in line. That proc- 
ess was so slow, Jimmy doubled up and laughed again. 

“Be lookin’ at that, will ye?” he heaved. “What does 
the domn fool think the Black Bass will be doin’ while he is 
takin’ in line on that young windlass ? ” 

“There’d be no room on the river to do that,” answered 
Mary serenely. “Dannie wouldn’t be so foolish as to try. 
All he wants now is to see if his line will run, and it wilL 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 189 

Whin he gets to the river, he’ll swing his bait where he 
wants it with his pole, like he always does, and whin the 
Bass strikes he’ll give it the extra fifteen feet more line he 
said he needed, and thin he’ll have a pole and line with 
which he can land it.” 

^‘Not on your life he won’t!” said Jimmy. 

He opened the back door, stepping out as Dannie raised 
the pole again. 

‘^Hey, you! Quit raisin’ Cain out there!” yelled 
Jimmy. ‘‘I want to get some sleep.’^ 

Across the night, tinged neither with chagrin nor rancour,, 
boomed the big voice of Dannie: Believe I have my 
extra line fixed so it works all right. Awful sorry if I 
waked you. Thought I was quiet.” 

^‘How much did you make off that?” inquired Mary.. 

^‘Two points,” answered Jimmy. Found out that 
Dannie ain’t sore at me any longer and that you are.” 

The morning was no sort of angler’s weather, but the 
afternoon gave promise of being good fishing by the mor- 
row. Dannie worked on the farms, preparing for winter; 
Jimmy worked with him until mid-aftemoon, then he 
called a boy passing, and they went away together. At 
supper time Jimmy had not returned. 

Mary came to where Dannie worked. 

‘‘Where’s Jimmy?” she asked. 

“I dinna know,” said Dannie. “He went away a while 
ago with some boy, I didna notice who.” 

“And he didn’t tell you where he was going?” 

“No.” 

“And he didn’t take either of his fish poles?” , 


f 90 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“No.” 

Mary’s lips thinned to a mere line. “Then it’s 
‘.Casey’s,” she said, and turned away. 

Dannie was silent. Presently Mary came back. 

“If Jimmy doesn’t come till morning,” she asked, “or 
comes in shape that he can’t fish, will you go without 
him?” 

“To-morrow was the day we agreed on,” answered 
Dannie. 

“Will you go without him?” persisted Mary. 

“What would he do if it were me?” asked Dannie. 

“When have you iver done to Jimmy Malone what he 
would do if he were you?” 

“Is there any reason why ye na want me to land the 
Black Bass, Mary?” 

“There is a particular reason why I don’t want your 
living with Jimmy to make you like him,” answered Mary. 
^‘My timper is being ruined, and I can see where it’s be- 
.ginning to show on you. Whativer you do, don’t do what 
he would.” 

“Dinna be hard on him, Mary. He doesna think,” 
tirged Dannie. 

“You niver said truer words. He doesn’t think. He 
niver thought about anybody in his life except himself, 
and he niver will.” 

“Maybe he didna go to town!” 

““Maybe the sun won’t rise in the morning, and it will 
always be dark after this ! Come in and eat your supper. ” 

“I’d best pick up something to eat at home,” said Dan- 


nie. 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 191 

have some good food cooked, so it^s a pity to be 
throwin’ it away. What^s the use? YouVe done a long 
day’s work, more for us than yoursilf, as usual; come along 
and have your supper.” 

Dannie went. While he was washing at the back door, 
Jimmy came through the barn, and up the walk. He was 
fresh, and in such fine spirits, that wherever he had been, 
It was surely not Casey’s. 

Where have you been?” asked Mary wonderingly. 

^^Robbin’ graves,” answered Jimmy promptly. 
needed a few stiffs in me business so I just went out to 
Five Mile and got them.” 

What are ye going to do with them, Jimmy?” chuckled 
Dannie. 

^^Use thim for Bass bait! Now rattle, old snake!” re- 
plied Jimmy. 

After supper Dannie went to the barn for the shovel 
to dig worms for bait. He noticed that Jimmy’s rubber 
waders hanging on the wall were covered almost to the 
top with fresh mud and water stains, and Dannie’s wonder 
grew. 

Early the next morning they started to the river. As 
usual Jimmy led the way. He proudly carried his new 
rod. Dannie followed with a basket of lunch Mary had 
insisted on packing, his big cane pole, a can of worms, and 
a shovel, in case they ran out of bait. 

Dannie had recovered his temper; he was great-hearted, 
big Dannie again. He talked about the south wind, 
shivered with the frost, and listened for the splash of the 
Bass. Jimmy had little to say. He seemed to be thinking 


192 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

deeply. No doubt he felt in his soul that they should set- 
tle the question of who landed the Bass with the same rods 
they had used when the contest was proposed, nor was 
that all. 

When they came to the temporary bridge, Jimmy started 
across it, but Dannie called to him to wait, he was for- 
getting his worms. 

‘H don^t want any worms, answered Jimmy briefly. 
He walked on. Dannie stood staring after him, for he did 
not understand that. Then he went slowly to his side of 
the river, and deposited his load under a tree where it 
would be out of the way. 

He laid down his pole, took a rude wooden spool of 
heavy fish cord from his pocket, passed the line through 
the loop next the handle and so on the length of the rod to 
the point. Then he wired on a sharp bass hook, and 
wound the wire far up the doubled line. As he worked, 
he kept watching Jimmy. He was doing practically the 
same thing. But just as Dannie had fastened on a light 
lead to carry his line, a souse in the river opposite attracted 
his attention. Jimmy hauled from the water a minnow 
bucket, and opening it, took out a live minnow, and placed 
it on his hook. ^‘Riddy,’^ he called, as he resank the 
bucket, then stood on the bank, holding his line in his 
fingers, watching the minnow play at his feet. 

The fact that Dannie was a Scotsman, and unusually 
slow and patient, did not alter the fact that he was a com- 
mon human being. The lump that arose in his throat was 
so big, and so hard, he did not try to swallow it. He hur- 
ried back into Rainbow Bottom. The first log he came 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 193 

across he kicked over, and grovelling in the rotten wood 
and loose earth with his hands, he brought up half a dozen 
bluish-white grubs. He tore up the ground the length of 
the log; then he went to others, cramming the worms and 
dirt with them into his pockets. When he had enough, he 
went back, and with extreme care placed three of them on 
his hook. He tried to see how Jimmy was going to fish, 
but he could not tell. So Dannie decided that he would 
cast in the morning, fish deep at noon, and cast again 
toward evening. 

He arose, turned to the river, and lifted his rod. As he 
stood looking over the channel, and the pool where the 
Bass homed, the Kingfisher came rattling down the river, 
and as if in answer to its cry, the Black Bass gave a leap, 
that sent the water flying. 

Ready cried Dannie, swinging his pole over the 
water. 

As the word left his lips, ^‘whizz,’^ Jimmy’s minnow 
landed in the middle of the circles widening from the rise 
of the Bass. There was a rush and a snap. Dannie saw 
the jaws of the big fellow close within an inch of the min- 
now, while he swam after it for a yard, as Jimmy slowly 
reeled in. Dannie waited a second, then softly dropped 
his grubs on the water where he figured the Bass would be. 
He could hear Jimmy smothering oaths. Dannie said 
something himself as his untouched bait neared the bank. 
He lifted it, swung it out, and slowly trailed it in again. 
‘‘‘Spat!” came Jimmy’s minnow almost at his feet, and 
again the Bass leaped for it. Again he missed. As the 
minnow reeled away the second time, Dannie swung his 


194 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 

grubs higher, and struck the water “Spat,” as the minnow 
had done. “Snap,” went the Bass. One instant the line 
strained, the next the hook came up stripped clean of bait. 

Then Dannie and Jimmy really went to work, and they 
were strangers. Not a word of friendly banter crossed the 
river. They cast until the Bass grew suspicious, and 
would not rise to the bait; then they fished deep. Then 
they cast again. If Jimmy fell into trouble with his reel, 
Dannie had the honesty to stop fishing until it worked 
again, but he spent the time burrowing for grubs until his 
hands resembled the claws of an animal. Sometimes they 
sat, and still-fished. Sometimes, they warily slipped along 
the bank, trailing bait a few inches under water. Then 
they would cast or skitter by turns. 

The Kingfisher struck his stump, and tilted on again. 
His mate, and their family of six followed in his lead, so 
that their rattle was almost constant. A fussy little red- 
eyed vireo asked questions, first of Jimmy, and then 
crossing the river besieged Dannie, but neither of the stern- 
faced fishermen paid it any heed. The blackbirds swung 
on the rushes, and talked over the season. As always, a 
few crows cawed above the deep woods, while the che- 
winks threshed around among the dry leaves. A band of 
larks were gathering for migration, so the frosty air was 
vibrant with their calls to each other. 

Kllldeers were circling above them in flocks. Half a 
dozen robins gathered over a wild grapevine, chirping 
cheerfully, as they pecked at the frosted fruit. At times, 
the pointed nose of a muskrat wove its way across the 
river, leaving a shining ripple in its wake. In the deep 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 195 

woods squirrels barked and chattered. Frost-loosened 
crimson leaves came whirling down, settling in a bright 
blanket that covered the water several feet from the bank, 
while unfortunate bees that had fallen into the river strug- 
gled frantically to gain a footing on them. Water beetles 
shot over the surface in small shining parties, and schools 
of tiny minnows played near the banks. Once a black 
ant assassinated an enemy on Dannie’s shoe, by creeping 
up behind it and puncturing its abdomen. 

Noon came, but neither of the fishermen spoke or moved 
from his work. The lunch Mary had prepared with 
such care they had forgotten. A little after noon, Dannie 
had another strike, deep fishing. Mid-afternoon found 
them still even, and patiently fishing. 

Then came supper time. The air was steadily growing 
colder. The south wind had veered to the west, and signs 
of a black frost were in the air. About this time the larks 
arose; with a whirr of wings that proved how large the 
flock was, sailing straight south. 

Jimmy hauled his minnow bucket from the river, poured 
the water from it, and picked his last minnow, a dead one, 
from the grass. Dannie was watching him, and rightly 
guessed that he would fish deep. So Dannie scooped the 
remaining dirt from his pockets, and found three grubs. 
He placed them on his hook, lightened his sinker, and pre- 
pared to skitter once more. 

Jimmy dropped his minnow beside the Kingfisher stump, 
and let it sink. Dannie hit the water at the base of the 
stump, where it had not been disturbed for a long time, t 
sharp ^‘Spat,” with his worms. Something seized his 


196 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

bait, and was gone. Dannie planted his feet firmly, squared 
his jaws, gripped his rod, and loosened his line. As his eye 
followed it, he saw to his amazement that Jimmy’s line 
was sailing oflF down the river beside his, while he heard the 
reel singing. 

Dannie was soon close the end of his line. He threw 
his weight into a jerk enough to have torn the head from a 
fish, and down the river the Black Bass leaped clear of the 
water, doubled, and with a mighty shake tried to throw 
the hook from his mouth. 

^‘Got him fast, by Jimminy!” screamed Jimmy in 
triumph. 

Straight toward them rushed the fish. Jimmy reeled 
wildly; Dannie gathered in his line by yard lengths, and 
grasped it with the hand that held the rod. Near them 
the Bass leaped again, then sped back down the river. 
Jimmy’s reel sang, while Dannie’s line jerked through his 
fingers. Back came the fish. Again Dannie gathered in 
line, and Jimmy reeled frantically. Then Dannie, relying 
on the strength of his line, thought he could land the fish, so 
he steadily drew it toward him. Jimmy’s reel began to 
sing louder, while his line followed Dannie’s. Instantly 
Jimmy went wild. 

^^Stop pullin’ me little silk thrid!” he yelled. ‘H’ve got 
the Black Bass hooked fast as a rock, and your domn 
clothes line is sawin’ across me. Cut there! Cut that 
domn rope! Quick!” 

^‘He’s mine, and I’ll land him!” roared Dannie. ‘‘Cut 
yoursel’, and let me get my fish!” 

So it happened, that when Mary Malone, tired of wait- 





The Black Bass leaped clear of the water 









K 






I ^ 




* 


*> 






41 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 197 

ing for the boys to come, and anxious as to the day^s out- 
come, slipped down to the Wabash to see what they were 
doing, she heard sounds that almost paralyzed her. Shak- 
ing with fear, she ran toward the river, then paused at a 
little thicket behind Dannie. 

Jimmy danced and raged on the opposite bank. Cut ! 
he yelled. ‘^Cut that domn cable, and let me Bass loose! 
Cut your line, I say!’’ 

Dannie stood with his feet planted widely apart, his 
jaws set- He drew his line steadily toward him, while 
Jimmy’s followed. 

‘We see!” exulted Dannie. ‘We’re across me. The 
Bass is mine! Reel out your line till I land him, if ye 
dinna want it broken.” 

‘Tf you don’t cut your line, I will!” raved Jimmy. 

“Cut nothin’!” cried Dannie. “Let’s see ye try to 
touch it!” 

Into the river went Jimmy; splash went Dannie from 
his bank. He was nearer the tangled lines, but the water 
was deepest on his side, and the mud of the bed held his 
feet. Jimmy reached the crossed lines, knife in hand, by 
the time Dannie was there. 

“Will you cut?” cried Jimmy. 

“Na!” bellowed Dannie. “I’ve give up every last 
thing to ye all my life, but I’ll no give up the Black Bass. 
He’s mine, and I’ll land him 1 ” 

Jimmy made a lunge for the lines. Dannie swung his 
pole backward, drawing them his way. Jimmy slashed 
again. Dannie dropped his pole, and with a sweep, caught 
the twisted lines in his fingers. 


198 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“Noo, let’s see ye cut my line! Babby!” he jeered. 

Jimmy’s fist flew straight, and the blood streamed from 
Dannie’s nose. Dannie dropped the lines, and straight- 
ened. “You ” he panted. “You ” And no 

other words came. 

If Jimmy had been possessed of any small particle of 
reason, he lost it at the sight of blood on Dannie’s face. 

“You’re a domn fish thief!” he screamed. 

“Ye lie!” breathed Dannie, but his hand did not lift. 

“You are a coward ! You’re afraid to strike like a man! 
Hit me! You don’t dare hit me!” 

“Ye lie!” repeated Dannie. 

“You’re a dog!” panted Jimmy. “I’ve used you to 
wait on me all me life!” 

“ That’s the God’s truth!” cried Dannie. But he made 
no movement to strike. Jimmy leaned forward with a dis- 
torted, insane face. 

“That time you sint me to Mary for you, I lied to her, 
and married her mesilf. Now, will you fight like a man ? ” 

Dannie made a spring, while Jimmy crumpled in his 
grasp. 

“Noo, I will choke the miserable tongue out of your 
heid, and twist the heid off" your body, and tear the body to 
mince-meat,” raved Dannie, pro'mptly beginning the job. 

With one awful effort Jimmy slightly loosened the grip- 
ping hands on his throat. “Lie!” he gasped. “It’s all 
a lie!” 

“It’s the truth! Before God it’s the truth!” Mary 
Malone tried to scream behind them. “It’s the truth! 
It’s the truth!” Her ears told her that she was making 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 199 

no sound as with dry lips she mouthed it over and over. 
Then she fainted, and sank down among the bushes. 

Dannie's hands relaxed a little, he lifted the weight of 
Jimmy's body by his throat, to set him on his feet. 

‘H'll give ye juist ane chance," he said. Is that the 
truth ? " 

Jimmy's awful eyes were bulging from his head, his 
hands were clawing at Dannie's on his throat, while his 
swollen lips repeated it over and over as breath came: 

‘Ht'salie! It's a lie!" 

think so myself," said Dannie. ^^Ye never would 
have dared. Ye'd have known that I'd find out some day, 
and on that day, I'd kill ye as I would a copperhead." 

‘‘A lie!" panted Jimmy. 

^‘Then why did ye tell it r " Dannie's fingers threatened 
to renew their grip. 

thought if I could make you strike back," gasped 
Jimmy, ‘^my hittin' you wouldn't same so bad." 

Then Dannie's hands relaxed. ^‘Oh, Jimmy! Jimmy!" 
he cried. ‘‘Was there ever any other mon like ye?" 

Then he remembered the cause of their trouble. 

^‘But, I'm everlastingly damned," Dannie went on, “if 
I'll gi'e up the Black Bass to ye, unless it's on your line. 
Get yourself up there on your bank!" 

The shove he gave Jimmy almost upset him. Jimmy 
waded back; when he climbed the bank, Dannie was be- 
hind him. After him he dragged the tangled lines and 
poles, up the bank and on the grass came two big fish; one, 
the great Black Bass of Horseshoe Bend; and the other 
nearly as large, a. channel catfish; undoubtedly, one of 


^oo AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


those which had escaped into the Wabash in an overflow 
iof the Celina reservoir that spring. 

ril cut/^ said Dannie. ‘^Keep your eye on me 
sharp. See me cut my line at the end o’ my pole.” He 
snipped the line in two. ^‘Noo watch,” he cautioned, 
iinna want contradeection about this!” 

He picked up the Bass, and taking the line by which it 
was fast at its mouth, he slowly drew it through his 
fingers. The wiry silk line slipped away, while the heavy 
rord whipped out free. 

^Ts this my line.? ” asked Dannie, holding it up. 

Jimmy nodded. 

‘Ts the Black Bass my fish.? Speak upl” cried Dannie, 
dangling the fish from the line. 

‘Tt’s yours,” admitted Jimmy. 

‘‘Then ril be damned if I dinna do what I please wi’ my 
own!” cried Dannie. With trembling fingers he extracted 
the hook, and dropped it. He took the gasping big fish in 
both hands, and tested its weight. “Almost seex,” he 
said. “Michty near seex!” 

Then he tossed the Black Bass back into the Wabash. 
He stooped^ and gathered up his pole and line. With one 
foot he kicked the catfish, the tangled silk line, and the 
jointed rod, toward Jimmy. “Take your fish!” he said. 
He turned and plunged into the river, recrossed it as he 
came, gathered up the dinner pail and shovel, passed 
Mary Malone, a tumbled heap in the bushes, and started 
toward his cabin. 

The Black Bass struck the water with a splash, and sank 
Co the mud of the bottom, where he lay joyfully soaking his 


WHEN THE BLACK BASS STRUCK 2or 


dry gills, parched tongue, and glazed eyes. He scooped 
water with his tail, and poured it over his torn jaw. And 
then he said to his progeny: ^‘Children, let this be a warn- 
ing to you. Never rise to but one grub at a time. Three 
worms are too good to be true! There is always a stinger 
in their midst. The Black Bass ruefully shook his sore 
head while he scooped more water. 



WHEN JIMMY MALONE CAME TO 
CONFESSION 


CHAPTER IX 

When Jimmy Malone Came to CoNFEasiorr 

D annie never before had known such anger as he 
felt when he trudged homeward across Rainbow 
Bottom. His brain whirled in a tumult of con- 
flicting passions, while his heart pained worse than his 
rapidly swelling face. In one instant the knowledge that 
Jimmy had struck him, possessed him with a desire to turn 
back and do murder. In the next, a sense of profound 
scorn for the cowardly lie which had driven him to the rage 
that kills encompassed him. Then in a surge came com- 
passion for Jimmy, at the remembrance of the excuse he 
had offered for saying that thing. How childish! But 
how like Jimmy! What was the use in trying to deal with 
him as if he were a man? A big, spoiled, selfish baby was 
all he ever would be. 

The fallen leaves rustled around Dannie’s feet. The 
blackbirds above him in chattering debate discussed mi- 
gration. A stiff breeze swept the fields, and topped the 
embankment; it rushed down circling around Dannie and 
setting his teeth chattering, for he was almost as wet as if 
he had been completely immersed. As the chill struck in^ 
from force of habit he thought of Jimmy. If he were ever 
going to learn how to take care of himself, a man past 
thirty-five should know. Would he come home and put on^ 


205 


2o6 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 


dry clothing? But when had Jimmy taken care of him- 
self? Dannie felt that he should go back, bring him home, 
and make him dress quickly. 

A sharp pain shot across Dannie’s swollen face. His lips 
shut firmly. No! Jimmy had struck him. And Jimmy 
had been in the wrong. The fish was his, and he had a 
right to it. No man living would have given it up to 
Jimmy, after he had changed poles. And slipped away 
with a boy and caught those minnows, tool And wouldn’t 
offer him even one. Much good they had done him. 
Caught a catfish on a dead one! Wonder if he would take 
the catfish to town and have its picture taken! Mighty 
fine fish,^too, that channel cat! If it hadn’t been for the 
Black Bass, they would have wondered and exclaimed over 
it, carefully weighed it, and commented on the gamy fight 
it made. Just the same he was glad, that he landed the 
Bass. And he hooked it fairly. If Jimmy’s old catfish 
mixed up with his line, he could not help that. He baited, 
hooked, played, and landed the Bass; and without any 
minnows either. 

When he reached the top of the hill he realized that he 
was going to look back. In spite of Jimmy’s selfishness, 
in spite of the blow, in spite of the ugly lie, Jimmy had 
been his lifelong partner, and his only friend, so stiffen his 
neck as he would, Dannie felt his head turning. He de- 
liberately swung his fish pole into the bushes; when it 
caught, as he knew it would, he set down his load, turning 
as if to release it. Not a sight of Jimmy anywhere! Dan- 
nie started on. 

“We are after you, Jimmy Malone!” 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 207 

A thin, wiry thread of a cry, that seemed to come twist- 
ing as if wrung from the chill air about him, whispered in 
his ear. Dannie jumped, dropped his load, and ran to- 
ward the river. He could not see a sign of Jimmy. He 
hurried over the shaky bridge they had built. The cat- 
fish lay gasping on the grass, the case and jointed rod were 
on a log, but Jimmy was gone. 

Dannie gave the catfish a shove that sent it far into the 
river, then ran toward the shoals at the lower curve of 
Horseshoe Bend. The tracks of Jimmy^s crossing were 
plain, so after him hurried Dannie. He ran up the hill, 
and as he reached the top he saw Jimmy climb on a wagon 
out on the road. Dannie called, but the farmer touched 
up his horses and trotted away without hearing him. 

‘‘The fool! To rideF’ thought Dannie. “Noo he will 
chill to the bone!’’ 

Dannie cut across the fields to the lane and gathered up 
his load. With the knowledge that Jimmy had started to 
town came the thought of Mary. What was he going to 
say to her? He would have to tell her, and he did not 
like the showing. Tell her? He could not tell her. He 
would lie to her once more, this one time for himself. He 
would tell her he fell in the river to account for his wet 
clothing and bruised face, and wait until Jimmy came 
home and see what explanation he made. 

He went to the cabin and tapped on the door; there was 
no answer, so he opened it and set the lunch basket inside. 
Then he hurried home, built a fire, bathed, and put on dry 
clothing. He wondered where Mary was. He was rav^ 
enously hungry now. He finished all the evening work. 


208 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


and as she still did not come, he concluded that she had 
gone to town, and that Jimmy knew she was there. Of 
course, that was it! Jimmy could get dry clothing of his 
brother-in-law. To be sure, Mary had gone to town. 
That was why Jimmy went. 

He was right. Mary had gone to town. When sense 
slowly returned to her she sat up in the bushes and stared 
around her. Then she arose and looked toward the river. 
The men were gone. Mary figured the situation correctly. 
They were too much of river men to drown in a few feet of 
water; they scarcely would kill each other. They had 
fought, then Dannie had gone home, and Jimmy to the 
consolation of Casey’s. Where should she go ? Mary 
Malone’s lips set in a firm line. 

^Ht’s the truth! It’s the truth!” she panted over and 
over, and now that there was no one to hear, she found that 
she could say it very plainly. As the sense of her out- 
raged womanhood swept over her she grew almost de- 
lirious. 

hope you killed him, Dannie Micnoun,” she raved. 

I hope you killed him, for if you didn’t, I will. Oh ! Oh ! ” 
She was almost suffocating with rage. The only thing 
clear to her was that she never again would live an hour 
with Jimmy Malone. He might have gone home. Prob- 
ably he did go for dry clothing. She would go to her 
sister. She hurried across the bottom, with wavering 
knees she climbed the embankment, then skirting the 
fields, she half walked, half ran to the village, and selecting 
back streets and alleys, tumbled, nearly distracted, into 
the home of her sister. 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 209 

^^Holy Vargin!’’ screamed Katie Dolan. ‘^Whativer 
do be ailin^ you, Mary Malone?” 

Jimmy! Jimmy!” sobbed the shivering Mary, 
knew it! I knew it! Fvc ixpicted it for years!” 
cried Katit;. 

‘‘TheyVehadafight ” 

‘‘Just what I looked for! I always told you they were 
too thick to last!” 

“And Jimmy told Dannie he’d lied to me and married 
me himsilf ” 

“He did! I saw him do it!” screamed Katie. 

“ \nd Dannie tried to kill him ” 

“I pe to Hivin he got it done, for if any man iver 
nadecl killin’! A carpse named Jimmy Malone would a 
looked good to me any time these fiftane years. I always 
said ” 

“And he took it back ” 

“Just like the rid divil! I knew he’d do it! And of 
course that mutton-head of a Dannie Micnoun belaved 
him, whativer he said ” 

“Of course he did!” 

“I knew it! Didn’t I say so first?” 

“And I tried to scrame and me tongue stuck ” 

“Sure! You poor lamb! My tongue always sticks! 
Just what I ixpicted!” 

“And me head just went round and I keeled over in the 
bushes ” 

“I’ve told Dolan a thousand times! I knew it! It’s no 
news to me!” 

“And whin I came to, they were gone, and I don’t know 


210 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


where, and I don’t care! But I won’t go back! I won’t go 
back! I’ll not live with him another day. Oh, Katie! 
Think how you’d feel if some one had siparated you and 
Dolan before you’d iver been togither!” 

Katie Dolan gathered her sister into her arms. “You 
poor lamb,” she wailed. “ I’ve known ivry word of this 
for fiftane years, and if I’d had the laste idea ’twas so. I’d 
a busted Jimmy Malone to smithereens before it iver hap- 
pened!” 

“I won’t go back! I won’t go back!” raved Mary. 

“I guess you won’t go back,” cried Katie, patting every 
available spot on Mary, or making dashes at her own eyes 
to stop the flow of tears. “I guess you won’t back! 
You’ll stay right here with me. I’ve always wantea you! 
I always said I’d love to have you! I’ve told thim from 
the start there was something wrong out there! I’ve 
ixpicted you ivry day for years, and I niver was so sur- 
prised in all me life as whin you came! Now, don’t you 
shed another tear. The Lord knows this is enough, for 
anybody. None at all would be too many for Jimmy Ma- 
lone. You get right into bid, and I’ll make you a cup of 
rid-pipper tay to take the chill out of you. And if Jimmy 
Malone comes around this house I’ll lay him out with the 
poker, and if Dannie Micnoun comes saft-saddering after 
him I’ll stritch him out too; yis, and if Dolan’s got any- 
thing to say, he can take his midicine like the rist. The 
min are all of a pace anyhow! I’ve always said it! If I 
wouldn’t like to get me fingers on that haythen; niver 
goin’ to confission, spindin’ ivrything on himself you 
naded for dacint livin’! Lit him come! Just lit him come!” 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 211 

Thus forestalled with knowledge, and overwhelmed with 
kindness, Mary Malone cuddled up in bed and sobbed her- 
self to sleep, while Katie Dolan assured her, as long as she 
was conscious, that she always had known it, and if 
Jimmy Malone came, she had the poker ready. 

Dannie did the evening work. When he milked he 
drank most of it, but that only made him hungrier, so he 
ate the lunch he had brought back from the river, as he sat 
before a roaring fire. His heart warmed with his body. 
Irresponsible Jimmy always had aroused something of the 
paternal instinct in Dannie. Some one had to be re- 
sponsible, so Dannie had been. Some way he felt respon- 
sible now. With another man like himself, it would have 
been man to man, but he always had spoiled Jimmy; now 
who was to blame that he was spoiled? 

Dannie was very tired, his face throbbed and ached 
painfully, and it was badly discoloured. His bed never 
seemed so inviting, and never had the chance to sleep been 
farther away. With a sigh, he buttoned his coat, twisted 
an old scarf around his neck, and started to the barn. 
There was going to be a black frost. The cold seemed to 
pierce him. He hitched to the single buggy, and drove to 
. town. He went to Casey^s and asked for Jimmy. 

‘^He isn’t here,” said Casey. 

^‘Has he been here?” asked Dannie. 

Casey hesitated, and then blurted out: ‘‘He said you 
wasn’t his keeper, and if you came after him, to tell you to 
go to hell.” 

Then Dannie was sure that Jimmy was in the back 
room, drying his clothing. So he drove to Mrs. Dolan’s, 


212 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


and asked if Mary was there for the night. Mrs. Dolan 
said she was, she was going to stay, and he might tell 
Jimmy Malone that he need not come near them, unless he 
wanted his head laid open. She shut the door forcibly. 

Dannie waited until Casey closed at eleven, and to his 
astonishment Jimmy was not among the men who came 
out. That meant that he had drank lightly after all, 
slipped from the back door, and gone home. And yet, 
would he do it, after what he had said about being afraid? 
If he had not drunk heavily, he would not go into the night 
alone, when he had been afraid in the daytime. Dannie 
climbed from the buggy once more, and patiently searched 
the alley and the street leading to the footpath across 
farms. No Jimmy. 

Then Dannie drove home, stabled his horse, and tried 
Jimmy’s back door. It was unlocked. If Jimmy were 
there, he probably would be lying across the bed in his 
clothing. Dannie knew that Mary was in town. He 
made a light, and cautiously entered the sleeping room, 
intending to undress and cover Jimmy, but Jimmy was not 
there. 

Dannie’s mouth fell open. He put out the light, and 
stood on the back steps. The frost had settled in a silver 
sheen over the roofs of the barns and the sheds, while a 
scum of ice had frozen over a tub of drippings at the well. 
Dannie was bitterly cold. He entered his cabin, and 
hunted out his winter overcoat, lighted his lantern, picked 
up a heavy cudgel in the corner, and started to town on 
foot over the path that lay across the fields. He followed 
it to Casey’s back door. He went to Mrs. Dolan’s again, 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 213 

but everything was black and silent there. There had 
been evening trains. He thought of Jimmy’s frequent 
threat to go away. He dismissed that thought grimly. 
There had been no talk of going away lately, and he knew 
thac Jimmy had little money. Dannie started home, and 
for a rod on either side he searched the path. 

As he came to the back of the barns, he berated himself 
for not thinking of them first. He searched both of them, 
all around them, then wholly tired, and disgusted, he went 
to bed. He decided that Jimmy had gone to Mrs. Dolan’s 
and that kindly woman had relented and taken him in. 
Of course that was where he was. 

Dannie was up early in the morning. He wanted to 
have the work done before Mary and Jimmy came home. 
He fed the stock, milked, built a fire, and began cleaning 
the stables. As he wheeled the first barrow of manure to 
the heap, he noticed a rooster giving danger signals behind 
the straw-stack. At the second load it was still there, so 
Dannie went to see what alarmed it. 

Jimmy lay behind the stack, where he had fallen face 
down. As Dannie tried to lift him he saw that he would 
have to cut him loose, for he had frozen fast in the muck of 
the barnyard. He had pitched forward among the rough 
cattle and horse tracks and fallen within a few feet of the 
entrance to a deep hollow eaten out of the straw by the 
cattle. Had he reached that shelter he would have been 
warm enough and safe for the night. 

Horrified, Dannie whipped out his knife, cut Jimmy’s 
clothing loose and carried him to his bed. He covered 
him, and hitching up drove at too speed for a doctor. He 


214 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

sent the physician ahead and then rushed to Mrs. Dolan’s. 
She saw him drive up and came to the door. 

‘‘Send Mary home and ye come too,^ Dannie called be- 
fore she had time to speak. “Jimmy lay oot all last nicht, 
and Tm afraid he’s dead.” 

Mrs. Dolan hurried in and repeated the message to 
Mary. She sat speechless while her sister bustled around 
putting on her wraps. 

“ I ain’t goin’,” she said shortly. “ If I got sight of him, 
I’d kill him if he wasn’t dead.” 

“Oh, yis you are goin’,” said Katie Dolan. “If he’s 
dead, you know, it. will save you being hanged for killing 
him. Get on these things of mine and hurry. You got to 
go for decency sake; and kape a still tongue in your head. 
Dannie Micnoun is waiting for us.” 

Together they went out and climbed into the carriage. 
Mary said nothing, but Dannie was too miserable to 
notice. 

“You didn’t find him thin, last night?” asked Mrs. 
Dolan. 

“Na!” shivered Dannie. “I was in town twice. I 
hunted almost all nicht. At last I made sure you had 
taken him in so I went to bed. It was three o’clock then. 
I must have passed often, wi’in a few yards of him.” 
“Where was he?” asked Katie. 

“Behind the straw-stack,” replied Dannie. 

“Do you think he will die?” 

“Dee!” cried Dannie. “Jimmy dee! Oh, my God! 
We mauna let him!” 

Mrs. Dolan took a furtive peep at Mary, who, dry-eyed 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 215 

and white, was staring straight ahead. She was trembling 
and very pale, but if Katie Dolan knew anything she knew 
that her sisteFs face was unforgiving and she did not in the 
least blame her. 

Dannie reached home as soon as the horse could take 
them, then under the doctor’s directions all of them began 
work. Mary did what she was told, but she did it de- 
liberately, and if Dannie had taken time to notice her he 
would have seen anything but his idea of a woman facing 
death for any one she ever had loved. Mary’s hurt went 
so deep, Mrs. Dolan had trouble to keep it covered. 
Some of the neighbours said Mary was cold-hearted; some 
of them that she was stupefied with grief. 

Without stopping for food or sleep, Dannie nursed 
Jimmy. He rubbed, he bathed, he poulticed, he badgered 
the doctor and cursed his inability to do some good. To 
every one except Dannie, Jimmy’s case was hopeless from 
the first. He developed double pneumonia in its worst 
form when he was in no condition to endure it in the 
slightest. His laboured breathing could be heard all over 
the cabin, and he could speak only in gasps. On the third 
day he seemed slightly better. When Dannie asked what 
he could do for him, ^‘Father Michael,” Jimmy panted, 
and clung to Dannie’s hand. 

Dannie sent a man and remained with Jimmy- He 
made no offer to go when the priest came. 

^‘This is probably in the nature of a last confession,” 
said Father Michael to Dannie, ‘H shall have to ask you to 
leave us alone.” 

Dannie felt the hand that clung to him relax, and the 


zie AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


perspiration broke on his temples. ‘‘Shall I go, Jimmy?’* 
he asked. 

Jimmy nodded. Dannie arose heavily and left the room. 
He sat down outside the door resting his head in his hands. 

The priest stood beside Jimmy. 

“The doctor tells me it is difficult for you to speak,” he 
said, “I will help you all I can. I will ask questions and 
you need only assent with your head or hand. Do you 
wish the last sacrament administered, Jimmy Malone?” 

The sweat rolled off Jimmy’s brow. He assented. 

“Do you wish to make final confession?” 

A deep groan shook Jimmy. The priest Temembered a 
gay, laughing boy, flinging back a shock of auburn hair, 
his feet twinkling in the lead of the dance. Here was ruin 
to make the heart of compassion ache. The Father bent 
and clasped the hand of Jimmy firmly. The question he 
asked was between Jimmy Malone and his God. The an- 
swer almost strangled him. 

“Can you confess that mortal sin, Jimmy?” asked the 
priest. 

The drops on Jimmy’s face merged in one bath of agony. 
His hands clenched and his breath seemed to go no lower 
than his throat. 

“Lied — Dannie,” he rattled. “Sip-rate him — and 
Mary ” 

“Are you trying to confess that you betrayed a confi- 
dence of Dannie Macnoun and married the girl who be- 
longed to him, yourself?” 

Jimmy assented. 

His horrified eyes hung on the priest^s face and saw it 


WHEN JIMMY CAME TO CONFESSION 217 

turn cold and stern. Always the thing he had done had 
tormented him; but not until the past summer had he be- 
gun to realize the depth of it, and it had almost unseated 
his reason. Now had come fullest appreciation, as Jimmy 
read the eyes filled with repulsion above him. 

‘‘And with that sin on your soul, you ask the last sacra- 
ment and the seal of forgiveness! You have not wronged 
God and the Holy Catholic Church as you have this man, 
with whom you have lived for years, while you possessed 
his rightful wife. Now he is here, in deathless devotion, 
fighting to save you. You may confess to him. If he will 
forgive you, God and the Church will ratify it, and set the 
seal on your brow. If not, you die unshriven 1 I will call 
Dannie Macnoun.^^ 

One gurgling howl broke from the swollen lips of Jimmy. 

As Dannie entered the room, the priest spoke a few 
words to him, stepped out and closed the door. Dannie 
Lurried to Jimmy’s side. 

“He said ye wanted to tell me something,” said Dannie. 
“What is it? Do you want me to do anything for you?” 

Suddenly Jimmy struggled to a sitting posture. His 
popping eyes almost burst from their sockets as he clutched 
Dannie with both hands. The perspiration poured in 
little streams down his dreadful face. 

“Mary,” the next word was lost in a strangled gasp. 
Then came “yours,” and then a queer rattle. Something 
seemed to give way. “The divils!” he shrieked. “The 
divils have got me!” 

Snap ! his heart failed, so Jimmy Malone went out to face 
his record, unforgiven by man, and unshriven by priest- 



cr I 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


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I \ 


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• 1 •*> 


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CHAPTER X 
Dannie's Renunciation 

S O THEY stretched Jimmy's length on Five Mile 
Hill beside the three babies who had lacked the 
^^vital spark." Mary went to the Dolans for the 
winter, leaving Dannie sole occupant of Rainbow Bottom. 
Because so much fruit and food that would freeze were 
stored there, he was even asked to live in Jimmy's cabin. 

Dannie began the winter stolidly. All day long and as 
far as he could find anything to do in the night, he worked. 
He mended everything on both farms, rebuilt the fences, 
then as a never-failing resource, he cut wood. He cut so 
much that he began to realize that it would become too dry 
so the burning of it would be extravagant. He stopped 
that and began making some changes he had long contem- 
plated. During fur time he set hi? line of traps on his side 
of the river while on the other he carefully set Jimmy's. 

But he divided the proceeds from the skins exactly in 
half, no matter whose traps caught them, then with 
Jimmy's share of the money he started a bank account for 
Mary. As he could not use all of them he sold Jimmy's 
horses, cattle and pigs. With half the stock gone he 
needed only half the hay and grain stored for feeding. He 
disposed of the chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese that 
Mary wanted sold, placing the money to her credit. He 


27 Z 


222 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


sent her a beautiful little red bank book with an explana- 
tion of all these transactions, by Dolan. Mary threw the 
book across the room because she wanted Dannie to keep 
her money himself; then cried herself to sleep that night, 
because Dannie had sent the book instead of bringing it. 
When she fully understood the transactions and realized 
that if she chose she could spend several hundred dollars, 
she grew very proud of that book. 

Through the empty cabins and the barns, working on 
the farms, wading the mud and water of the river bank, or 
tingling with cold on the ice went two Dannies : the one a 
dull, listless man, mechanically forcing a tired, overworked 
body to action; the other a self-accused murderer. 

“I am responsible for the whole thing,” he told himself 
many times a day. “I always humoured Jimmy. I al- 
ways took the muddy side of the road, the big end of the 
log, the hard part of the work, and filled his traps wi’ rats 
from my own; why in God’s name did I let the deil o' 
stubbornness in me drive him to his death noo? Why 
didna I let him have the Black Bass? Why didna I make 
him come home and put on dry clothes ? I killed him, juist 
as sure as if I’d taken an ax and broken his held.” 

Through every minute of the exposure of winter out- 
doors and the torment of it inside, Dannie tortured himself. 
Of Mary he seldom thought at all. She was safe with her 
sister. Dannie did not know when or how it happened, 
but he awoke one day to the realization that he had re- 
nounced her. He had killed Jimmy; he could not take his 
wife and his farm. And Dannie was so numb with long- 
suiFering, that he did not much care. There come times 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


223 

when troubles pile so deep that the edge of human feeling 
is dulled. 

He would take care of Mary, yes, she was as much 
Jimmy’s as his farm, but he did not want her for himself 
now. If he had to kill his only friend, he would not com- 
plete his downfall by trying to win his wife. 

So through that winter Mary had very little considera- 
tion in the remorseful soul of Dannie, and Jimmy grew, as 
the dead grow, by leaps and bounds, until by spring Dan- 
nie had him well-nigh canonized. 

When winter broke, Dannie had his future carefully 
mapped out. That future was devotion to Jimmy’s mem- 
ory, with no more of Mary in it than was possible to keep 
out. He told himself that he was glad she was away and 
he did not care to have her return. Deep in his soul he 
harboured the feeling that he had killed Jimmy to make 
himself look victor in her eyes in such a small matter as 
taking a fish. And deeper yet a feeling that, everything 
considered, still she might mourn Jimmy more than she 
did. 

So Dannie definitely settled that he always would live 
alone on the farms. Mary should remain with her sister, 
and at/his death, everything should be hers. The night he 
finally reached that decision, the Kingfisher came home. 
Dannie heard his rattle of exultation as he struck the em- 
bankment and the suffering man turned his face to the 
wall and sobbed aloud, so that for a little time he stifled 
Jimmy’s dying gasps that in wakeful night hours sounded 
in his ears. Early the following morning he drove through 
the village on his way to the county seat, with a load of 


22 1 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

grain. Dolan saw him and running home he told Mary. 
‘‘He will be gone all day. Now is your chance!’* he said. 

Mary sprang to her feet, “Hurry! ” she panted, “hurry!’* 

An hour later a loaded wagon, a man and three women 
drew up before the cabins in Rainbow Bottom. Mary, her 
sister, Dolan, and a scrub woman entered. Mary pointed 
out the objects which she wished removed, and Dolan 
carried them out. They took up the carpets, swept down 
the walls, and washed the windows. They hung pictures, 
prints, and lithographs, and curtained the windows in 
dainty white. They covered the floors with bright car- 
pets, and placed new ornaments on the mantel, and com- 
fortable furniture in the rooms. There was a white iron 
bed, and several rocking chairs, and a shelf across the 
window filled with potted hyacinths in bloom. Among 
them stood a glass bowl, containing three wonderful little 
gold fish, while from the top casing hung a brass cage, 
from which a green linnet sang an exultant song. 

You should have seen Mary Malone! When every- 
thing was finished, she was changed the most of all. She 
was so sure of Dannie, that while the winter had brought 
annoyance that he did not come, it really had been one 
long, glorious rest. She laughed and sang, and grew 
younger with every passing day. As youth surged back, 
with it returned roundness of form, freshness of face, and 
that bred the desire to be daintily dressed. So of pretty 
light fabrics she made many summer dresses, for wear 
mourning she would not. 

When calmness returned to Mary, she had told the Do' 
Ians the whole story. 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


225 

‘‘Now do you ixpict me to grieve for the man?’’ she 
asked. “ Fiftane years with him, through his lying tonguex 
whin by ivry right of our souls and our bodies, Dannie 
Micnoun and I belanged to each other. Mourn for him ! 
I’m glad he’s dead! Glad! Glad! If he had not died, I 
should have killed him, if Dannie did not! It was a 
happy thing that he died. His death saved me mortal 
sin. I’m glad, I tell you, and I do not forgive him, and I 
niver will, and I hope he will burn 

Katie Dolan clapped her hand over Mary’s mouth. 
“For the love of marcy, don’t say that!” she cried. “You 
will have to confiss it, and you’d be ashamed to face the 
praste.” 

“I would not,” cried Mary. “Father Michael knows 
I’m just an ordinary woman, he doesn’t ixpict me to be an 
angel.” But she left the sentence unfinished. 

After Mary’s cabin was arranged to her satisfaction, 
they attacked Dannie’s; emptying it, cleaning it com- 
pletely, and refurnishing it from the best of the things that 
had been in both. Then Mary added some n^ touches. 
A. comfortable big chair was placed by his fire, new books 
on his mantel, a flower in his window, and new covers on 
his bed. While the women worked, Dolan raked the 
yards, and freshened the outside as best he could. When 
everything they had planned to do was accomplished, the 
wagon, loaded with the ugly old things Mary despised, 
drove back to the village, while she, with little Tilly Dolan 
for company, remained. 

Mary was tense with excitement. All the woman in hex 
had yearned for these few pretty things she wanted for hex 


226 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


home throughout the years that she had b en compelled to 
live in crude, ugly surroundings; because every cent above 
plainest clothing and food went for drink for Jimmy, and 
treats for his friends. Now she danced and sang, and 
flew around trying a chair here, and another there, to get 
the best effect. Every little while she slipped into her bed- 
room, stood before a real dresser, and pulled out its trays 
to make sure that her fresh, light dresses were really there. 
She shook out the dainty curtains repeatedly, watered the 
flowers, and fed the fish when they did not need it. She 
babbled incessantly to the green linnet, which with swollen 
throat rejoiced with her, and occasionally she looked in the 
mirror. 

She lighted the fire, and put food to cook. She covered 
a new table, with a new cloth, set it with new dishes, and 
placed a jar ofher flowers in the centre. What a supper she 
aid cook! When she had waited until she was near 
crazed with nervousness, she heard the wagon coming up 
the lane. Peeping from the window, she saw Dannie stop 
the horses short, and sit staring at the cabins. Then she 
realized that smoke would be curling from the chimney, 
while the flowers and curtains would change the shining 
windows outside. She trembled with excitement, and 
then a great yearning seized her, as he slowly drove closer, 
for his brown hair was almost white, and the lines on his 
face seemed indelibly stamped. And then hot anger shook 
her. Fifteen years of her life wrecked, and look at Dam 
nie! That was Jimmy Malone’s work. 

Over and over, throughout the winter, she had planned 
this home-coming as a surprise for Dannie. Book-fine 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


227 


were the things she Intended to say to him. When he 
opened the door, and stared at her around the altered 
room, she swiftly went to him, and took the bundles he 
carried from his arms. 

Hurry up, and unhitch, Dannie,” she said. ^‘Your 
supper is waiting.” 

Dannie turned and stolidly walked back to his team, 
without uttering a word. 

‘‘Uncle Dannie!” cried a child’s voice. ^‘Please let me 
ride to the bam with you!” 

A winsome little maid came rushing to Dannie, threw 
her arms around his neck, and hugged him tight, as he 
stooped to lift her. Her yellow curls were against his 
cheek, her breath was flower-sweet on his face. 

“Why didn’t you kiss Aunt Mary?” she demanded. 
“Daddy Dolan always kisses mammy when he comes from 
all day gone. Aunt Mary’s worked so hard to please you. 
And Daddie worked, and mammy worked, and another 
woman. You are pleased, ain’t you. Uncle Dannie?” 

“Who told ye to call me Uncle?” asked Dannie, with un- 
steady lips. 

“She did!” announced the little woman, flourishing the 
whip in the direction of the cabin. Dannie climbed down 
to unhitch. “You are goin’ to be my Uncle, ain’t you, as 
soon as it’s a little over a year, so folks won’t talk?” 

“Who told ye that?” panted Dannie, hiding behind a 
horse. 

“Nobody told me! Mammy just said It to Daddy, and 
I heard,” answered the little maid. “And I’m glad of it, 
and so are all of us glad. Mammy said she’d just love to 


228 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 


come here now, whin things would be like white folks. 
Mammy said Aunt Mary had suffered a lot moreen hei 
share. Say, you wonT make her suffer any more, will you ? ” 
moaned Dannie, and staggered into the barn 
with the horses. He leaned against a stall, and shut his 
eyes. He could see the bright room, plainer than ever, 
while that little singing bird sounded loud as any thunder 
in his ears. Whether closed or open, he could see Mary, 
never in all her life so beautiful, never so sweet; flesh and 
blood Mary, in a dainty dress, with the shining, unafraid 
eyes of girlhood. It was that thing which struck Dannie 
first, and hit him hardest. Mary was a careless girl again. 
When before had he seen her with neither trouble, anxiety, 
or, worse yet, fear, in her beautiful eyes 

She had come to stay. She would not have refurnished 
her cabin otherwise. Dannie took hold of the manger 
with both hands, because his sinking knees needed bracing. 

‘‘Dannie,” called Mary’s voice in the doorway, “has my 
spickled hin showed any signs of setting yet.^” 

“She’s been over twa weeks,” answered Dannie. “ She’s 
in that barrel there in the corner.” 

Mary entered the barn, removed the prop, lowered the 
board, and kneeling, stroked the hen, and talked softly to 
her. She slipped a hand under the hen, and lifted her to 
see the eggs. Dannie staring at Mary noted closer the 
fresh, cleared skin, the glossy hair, the delicately coloured 
cheeks, and the plumpness of the bare arms. One little 
wisp of curl lay against the curve of her neck, just where it 
showed rose-pink, and seemed honey sweet. In one great 
surge the repressed stream of passion in the strong man 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


229 


broke, until Dannie swayed against his horse. His tongue 
stuck to the roof of his mouth, while he caught at the har- 
ness to steady himself, as he strove to grow accustomed to 
the fact that hell had opened in a new form for him. The 
old heart hunger for Mary Malone was back in stronger 
force than ever before; and because of him Jimmy lay 
stretched on Five Mile Hill. 

‘‘Dannie, you are just fine!” said Mary. “Tve been al- 
most wild to get home, because I thought ivrything 
would be ruined, and instid of that it’s all ixactly the way I 
do it. Do hurry, and get riddy for supper. Oh, it’s so 
good to be home again! I want to make garden, and fix 
my flowers, and get some little chickens and turkeys into 
my fingers.” 

“I have to go home, and wash, and spruce up a bit, for 
ladies,” said Dannie, leaving the barn. 

Mary made no reply, so it came to him that she expected 
it. 

“Damned if I will!” ne said, as he started home. “If 
she wants to come here, and force herself on me, she can, 
tut she canna mak’ me ” 

Just then Dannie stepped in his door, to slowly gaze 
around him. In a way his home was as completely trans- 
formed as hers. He washed his face and hands, then 
started for a better coat. His sleeping room shone with 
clean windows, curtained in snowy white. A freshly ironed 
suit of underclothing and a shirt lay on his bed. Dannie 
stared at them. 

“She thinks I’ll tog up in them, and come courtin’,” he 
growled. “I’ll show h^^r if t do! I winna touch them!” 


230 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

To prove that he would not, Dannie caught them up in a 
wad, throwing them into a corner. That showed a clean 
sheet, fresh pillow, and new covers, invitingly spread back. 
Dannie turned as white as the pillow at which he stared. 

‘^That's a damn plain insinuation that Tm to get into 
ye,” he said to the bed, ‘^and go on living here. I dinna 
know as that child's jabber counts. For all I know, Mary 
may already have picked out some town dude to bring here 
and farm out on me, and they'll live with the bird cage, 
while I can go on climbin' into ye alone.” 

Here was a new thought. Mary might mean only kind- 
ness to him again, as she had sent word by Jimmy she 
meant years ago. He might lose her for the second time. 
Again a wave of desire struck Dannie, that left him stagger- 
ing. 

Ain't you cornin'. Uncle Dannie?” called the child's 
voice at the back door. 

What's your name, little lass?” inquired Dannie. 

^^Tilly,” answered the little girl promptly. 

‘^Well, Tilly, ye go tell your Aunt Mary I have been in 
an eelevator handlin' grain, and I'm covered wi' fine dust 
and chaff that sticks me. I canna come until I've had a 
bath, and put on clean clothing. Tell her to go ahead.” 

The child vanished. In a second she was back. ‘‘She 
said she won't do it, and take all the time you want. But 
I wish you'd hurry, for she won't let me either.” 

Dannie hurried. But the hasty bath and the fresh 
clothing felt so good he was in a softened mood when he 
approached Mary's door again. Tilly was waiting on the 
step, and ran to meet him. Tilly was delightful. Almost, 


DANNIE RENUNCIATION 


231 

Dannie understood why Mary had brought her. Tilly led 
him to the table; pulled back a chair for him, while he lifted 
her into hers, and Mary set dish after dish of food on the 
table. Tilly filled in every pause that threatened to grow 
awkward with her chatter. Dannie had been a very 
lonely man, and he did love Mary’s cooking. Until then 
he had not realized how sore a trial six months of his own 
had been. 

^Tf I was a praying mon, Fd ask a blessing, and thank 
God fra this food,” said Dannie. 

‘^What’s the matter with me?” asked Mary. 

‘T have never yet found anything,” answered Dannie. 
*^And I do thank ye fra everything. I believe Fm most 
thankful of all fra the clean clothes and the clean bed. 
Fm afraid I was neglectin’ myself, Mary.” 

‘^Will, you’ll not be neglected any more,” said Mary. 
‘Things have turned over a new leaf here. For all you 
give, you get some return, after this. We are going to do 
business in a businesslike way, and divide even. I liked 
that bank account pretty will, Dannie. Thank you, for 
that. And don’t think I spint all of it. I didn’t spind a 
hundred dollars all togither. Not the price of one horse! 
But it made me so happy I could fly. Home again, and 
the things I’ve always wanted, and nothing to fear. Oh, 
Dannie, you don’t know what it manes to a woman to be 
always afraid! My heart is almost jumping out of my 
body, just with pure joy that the old fear is gone.” 

‘T know what it means to a mon to be afraid,” said 
Dannie. And vividly before him loomed the awful, dis- 
torted, dying face of Jimmy* 


232 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

Mary guessed, so her bright face clouded. 

'^Some day, Dannie, we must have a little talk,’’ she 
said, ^‘and clear up a few things neither of us understand. 
’Tii thin we will Just farm, like partners, and be as happy 
as iver we can. I don^t know as you mean to, but if you 
do, I warn you right now that you need niver mintion the 
flame of Jimmy Malone to me again, for any reason.” 

Dannie left the cabin abruptly. 

^^Now you gone and made him mad!” reproached Tilly. 

During the past winter Mary had lived with other 
married people for the lirst time, so she had imbibed some 
of Mrs. Dolan’s philosophy. 

^^Whin he smells the biscuit I mane to make for break- 
fast, he’ll get glad again,” she said. 

Dannie went home, and tried to learn where he stood, 
fVus he truly responsible for Jimmy^s death? Yes. If he 
had acted like a man, he could have saved Jimmy. He was 
responsible. Did he want to marry Mary? Did he? 
Dannie reached empty arms to empty space,, and groaned 
aloud. Would she marry him? Well, now, would she? 
After years of neglect and sorrow, Dannie knew that Mary 
had learned to prefer him to Jimmy. But almost any 
man would have been preferable to a woman, to Jimmy. 
Jimmy was distinctly a man’s man. A j^lly good fellow, 
but he would not deny himself anything, no matter what 
k cost his wife, so ne had been very difficult to live with. 
Dannie admitted that. For this reason Mary had come 
io prefer him to Jimmy, that was sure; but it was not a^ 
question between him and Jimmv now. It was between? 
him and any marriageable man that Mary might fancy.. 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 


He had grown old, gray, and wrinkled, although he was 
under forty. Mary had grown round, and young; he had 
never seen her appear so beautiful. Surely she would 
want a man now as young, and as fresh as herself; and she 
might want to live in town after a while, if she grew tired 
of the country. Could he remember Jimmy’s dreadful 
death, realize that he was responsible for it, and then try 
to win his wife ? No, she was sacred to Jimmy. Could he 
live beside her, and lose her to another man for the second 
time? No, she belonged to him. It was almost day- 
break when Dannie remembered the fresh bed, then he lay 
down for a few hours’ rest. 

But there was no rest for Dannie, so after tossing around 
until dawn he began his work. When he carried the milk 
into the cabin, and smelled the biscuits, he fulfilled Mary’s 
prophecy, got glad again, and came to breakfast. Then he 
went to his work. 

But as the day wore on, he repeatedly heard the voice of 
the woman and the child, combining in a chorus of laugh- 
ter. From the little front porch, the green bird warbled 
and trilled. Neighbours who had heard of her return 
came up the lane to welcome a happy Mary Malone. The 
dead dreariness of winter melted before the spring sun, 
while in Dannie’s veins the warm blood swept up, as the 
sap flooded the trees, so in spite of himself he grew gladder 
and yet gladder. 

He knew now how he had missed Mary; how he had 
loathed that empty, silent cabin, how remorse and heart 
hunger had gnawed at his vitals. So he decided that he 
would go on just as Mary had said, and let things drift; and 


234 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 

when she was ready to have the talk with him she had men- 
tioned, he would hear what she had to say. As he thought 
over these things, he caught himself watching for furrows 
that Jimmy was not making on the other side of the field. 

He tried to talk to the robins and blackbirds instead of 
Jimmy, but they were not such good company. When 
the day was over, he tried not to be glad that he was going 
to the shining eyes of Mary Malone, a good supper, and a 
clean bed, but it was not in the heart of man to do that. 

The summer wore on, autumn came, and the year Tilly 
had spoken of was past. Dannie went his way, doing the 
work of two men, thinking of everything, planning for 
everything, and he was all the heart of Mary Malone could 
desire, save her lover. By little Mary pieced out the situ- 
ation. Dannie never mentioned fishing; he had lost his 
love for the river. She knew that he frequently took walks 
to Five Mile Hill. His devotion to Jimmy’s memory was 
unswerving. So at last it came to her, that in death as in 
life, Jimmy Malone was separating them. She began to 
realize that there might be things she did not know. What 
had Jimmy told the priest? Why had Father Michael re- 
fused to confess Jimmy until he sent Dannie to him? 
What had passed between them ? If it were what she had 
thought all year, why did it not free Dannie to her? If 
there were something more, what was it? 

Surely Dannie loved her. Much as he had cared for 
Jimmy, he had vowed that everything was for her first. 
She was eager to be his wife, yet something bound him. 
One day, she decided to ask him. The next, she shrank 
in burning confusion, for when Jimmy Malone had asked 


DANNIE’S RENUNCIATION 235 

for her love, she had admitted to him that she loved Dan- 
nie, and Jimmy had told her that it was no use, Dannie 
did not care for girls, and that he had said he wished she 
would not thrust herself upon him. On the strength of 
that statement Mary married Jimmy inside five weeks, 
then spent years in bitter repentance. 

That was the thing which held her now. If Dannie 
knew what she did, and did not care to marry her, how 
could she mention it? Mary began to grow pale, to lose 
sleep, so Dannie said the heat of the summer had tired her, 
and suggested that she go to Mrs. Dolan’s for a week’s 
rest. The fact that he was willing and possibly anxious to 
send her away for a whole week, angered Mary. She went. 


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THE. POT OF GOLD 



CHAPTER XI 
The Pot of Gold 


M ary had not been in the Dolan home an hour 
until Katie knew all she could tell of her trouble. 
Mrs. Dolan was practical. “Go to see Father 
Michael,” she said. “What’s he for but to hilp us. Go ask 
him what Jimmy told him. Till him how you feel and 
what you know. He can till you what Dannie knows and 
thin you will understand where you are at.” 

Mary was on the way before Mrs. Dolan fully finished. 
She went to the priest’s residence and asked his house- 
keeper to inquire if he would see her. He would, so Mary 
entered his presence strangely calm and self-possessed. 
This was the last fight she knew of that she could make for 
happiness; if she lost, happiness was over for her. She 
had need of all her wit and she knew it. Father Michael 
began laughing as he shook hands. 

“Now look here, Mary,” he said, “I’ve been expecting 
you. I warn you before you begin that I cannot sanction 
your marriage to a Protestant.” 

“Oh, but I’m going to convart him!” cried Mary so 
quickly that the priest laughed louder than ever. 

“So that’s the lay of the land!” he chuckled. “Well, if 
you’ll guarantee that. I’ll give in. When shall I read the 
banns?” 

C39 


240 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

‘‘Not until we get Dannie’s consint,” answered Mary, 
with wavering voice. 

Father Michael looked his surprise. “Tut! Tut!” he 
said. “And is Dannie dilatory?” 

“Dannie is the finest man who will ever live in this 
world,” said Mary, “but he doesn’t want to marry me.” 

“To my certain knowledge Dannie has loved you all 
your life,” said Father Michael. “He wants nothing here 
or hereafter as he wants to marry you.” 

“Thin why doesn’t he till me so?” sobbed Mary, bury- 
ing her burning face in her hands. 

“Has he said nothing to you?” gravely inquired the 
priest. 

“No, he hasn’t and I don’t belave he intinds to,” an- 
swered Mary, wiping her eyes and trying to be composed. 
“There is something about Jimmy that is holding him 
back. Mrs. Dolan thought you’d help me.” 

“What do you want me to do, Mary?” asked Father 
Michael. 

“Two things,” answered Mary promptly. “I want you 
to tell me what Jimmy confissed to you before he died, and 
then I want you to talk to Dannie and show him that he is 
free from any promise that Jimmy might have got out of 
him. Will you 

“A dying confession ” began the priest. 

“Yes, but I know ” broke in Mary. “I saw them 

fight, I heard Jimmy tell Dannie that he’d lied to him to 
separate us, but he turned right around and took it back 
and I knew Dannie belaved him thin; but he can’t now 
after Jimmy confissed it again to both of vou.” 


THE POT OF GOLD 


241 

“What do you mean by ‘saw ihetn fight?’” Father 
Michael was leaning toward Mary anxiouslyi 

Mary told him. 

“Then that is the explanation of the whole thing,’’ said 
the priest. “ Dannie did believe Jimmy when he took it 
back, and he died before he could repeat to Dannie what he 
had told me. And I have had the feeling that Dannie 
thought himself in a way to blame for Jimmy’s death.” 

“He was not! Oh, he was not!” cried Mary Malone. 
“Didn’t I live there with them all those years? Dannie 
always was good as gold to Jimmy. It was shameful the 
way Jimmy imposed on him, and spint his money, and took 
me from him. It was shameful! Shameful!” 

“Becalm! Be calm!” cautioned Father Michael, “t 
agree with you. I am only trying to arrive at Dannie’s 
point of view. He well might feel that he was responsible, 
if after humouring Jimmy like a child all his life, he at last 
lost his temper and dealt with him as if he were a man. If 
that is the case, he is of honour so fine, that he would hesi- 
tate to speak to you, no matter what he suffered. And 
then it is clear to me that he does not understand how 
Jimmy separated you in the first place.” 

“And lied me into marrying him, whin I told him over 
and over how 1 loved Dannie. Jimmy Malone took ivry- 
thing I had to give, and he left me alone for fiftane years* 
with my three little dead babies, that died because I’d no 
heart to desire life for thim, and he took my youth, and he 
took my womanhood, and he took my man--- — ” Mary 
arose in primitive rage. “You naden’t bother!” she said. 
“ I’m going straight to Dannie meself,” 


242 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“Don’t!” said Father Michael softly. “Don’t do that, 
Mary! It isn’t the accepted way. There is a better! 
Let him come to you. ” 

“But he won’t come! He doesn’t know! He’s m 
Jimmy’s grip tighter in death than he was in life.” Mary 
began to sob again. 

“He will come,” said Father Michael. “Be calm! 
Wait a little, my child. After all these years, don’t spoil a 
love that has been almost unequalled in holiness and beauty, 
by anger at the dead. Let me go to Dannie. We are 
good friends. I can tell him Jimmy made a confession to 
me, that he was trying to repeat to him, when punishment, 
far more awful than anything ou have suffered, overtook 
him. Always remember Mary, he died unshriven!” 
Mary began to shiver. “Your suffering is over,” con- 
tinued the priest. “You have many good years yet that 
you may spend with Dannie; God will give you living 
children, I am sure. Think of the years Jimmy’s secret 
has hounded and driven him! Think of the penalty he 
must pay before he has a glimpse of paradise, if he be not 
eternally lost ! ” 

“I have!” exclaimed Mary. “And it is nothing to the 
fact that he took Dannie from me, and yet kept him in my 
home while he possessed me himsilf for years. May he 
burn ” 

“Mary! Let that suffice!” cried the priest. “He will! 
The question now is, shall I go to Dannie?” 

“ Will you till him just what Jimmy told you ? Will you 
till him that I have loved him always?” 

“Yes,” said Father Michael. 


THE POT OF GOLD 


243 


you go now?’^ 

^T cannot! I have work, I will come early in the 
morning/’ 

‘‘You will till him ivrything?” she repeated, 
will,” promised Father Michael. 

Mary went back to Mrs. Dolan’s comforted. She was . 
eager to return home at once, but at last consented to 
spend the day. Now that she was sure Dannie did not 
know the truth, her heart warmed toward him. She was 
anxious to comfort and help him in the long struggle shej 
saw he must have endured. By late afternoon she could! 
bear it no longer and started back to Rainbow Bottom in 
time to prepare supper. 

For the first hour after Mary had gone Dannie whistled 
to keep up his courage. By the second he had no courage 
to keep. By the third he was indulging in the worst fit of 
despondency he ever had known. He had told her to stay 
a week. A week! It would be an eternity! There alone 
again! Could he endure it? He got through to mid- 
afternoon some way, and then in jealous fear and fore- 
boding he became almost frantic. One way or the other, 
this thing must be settled. Fiercer raged the storm within 
him and at last toward evening it became unendurable. 

At its height the curling smoke from the chimney told 
him that Mary had come home. An unreasoning joy 
seized him. He went to the barn and listened. He could 
hear her moving around preparing supper. As he watched 
she came to the well for water and before she returned to 
the cabin she stood looking over the fields as if trying to 
locate him. Dannie’s blood ran hotly and his pulses 


244 at the foot of THE RAINBOW 

were leaping. to her! Go to her now!^^ demanded 

passion, struggling to break leash. ^‘You killed Jimmy! 
You murdered your friend!'^ cried conscience, with un- 
yielding insistence. Poor Dannie gave one last glance at 
Mary; then turned, and for the second time he ran from 
her as if pursued by demons. But this time he went 
straight to Five Mile Hill, and the grave of Jimmy Malone. 

He sat on it, and within a few feet of Jimmy^s bones, 
Dannie took his tired head in his hands, and tried to think; 
for the life of him, he could think only two things: that he 
had killed Jimmy, and that to live longer without Mary 
would kill him. Hour after hour he fought with his life- 
long love for Jimmy and his lifelong love for Mary. Night 
came on, the frost bit, the wind chilled, and the little brown 
owls screeched among the gravestones, while Dannie 
battled on. Morning came, the sun arose, and shone 
on Dannie, sitting numb with drawn face and aching 
heart. 

Mary prepared a fine supper the night before, and pa- 
tiently waited. When Dannie did not come, she con- 
cluded that he had gone to town, without knowing that she 
had returned. Tilly grew sleepy, so she put the child to 
bed, and presently she went herself. Father Michael 
would make everything right in the morning. 

But in the morning Dannie was not there, and had not 
been. Mary became alarmed. She was very nervous by 
the time Father Michael arrived. He decided to go to the 
nearest neighbour, and ask when Dannie had been seen 
last. As he turned from the lane into the road a man of 
that neighbourhood was passing on his wagon, so the 


THE POT OF GOLD 


HS 

priest hailed him, and asked if he knew where Dannie Mac- 
noun was. 

^^Back in Five Mile Hill, a man with his head on his 
knees, is a-settin^ on the grave of Jimmy Malone, and I 
allow that would be Dannie Macnoun, the big fool!^^ he 
said. 

Father Michael went back to the cabin, and told Mary 
he had learned where Dannie was, that she should have no 
uneasiness, as he would go to see him immediately. 

‘^And first of all youHl till him how Jimmy lied to 
him?^’ 

** I will ! ’’ said the priest. 

He entered the cemetery, walking slowly to the grave of 
Jimmy Malone. Dannie lifted his head, and stared at 
him. 

‘T saw you,” said Father Michael, ^^and I came in to 
speak with you.” He took Dannie’s hand. ‘‘You are 
here at this hour to my surprise.” 

“I dinna know that ye should be surprised at my cornin’ 
to sit by Jimmy at ony time,” coldly replied Dannie. “He 
was my only friend in life, and another mon so fine Fll 
never know. I often come here.” 

The priest shifted his weight from one foot to the other, 
then he sat on a grave near Dannie. “For a year I have 
been waiting to talk with you,” he said. 

Dannie wiped his face, and lifting his hat, ran his fingers 
through his hair, as if to arouse himself. His eyes were 
dull and listless. “I am afraid I am no fit to talk sen- 
sibly,” he said. “I am much troubled. Some other 

99 


time- 


^46 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

“Could you tell me your trouble?'^ asked Fathar 
Michael. 

Dannie shook his head. 

“I have known Mary Malone all her life/' said th& 
priest gently, “and been her confessor. I have known 
Jimmy Malone all his life, and heard his dying confession. 
I know what it was he was trying to tell you when he died.. 
Think again!'' 

Dannie Macnoun stood up. He looked at the priest 
intently. “Did ye come here purposely to find me?"' 

“Yes." 

“What do ye want?" 

“To clear your mind of all trouble, to fill your heart 
with love, and great peace, and rest. Our Heavenly 
Father knows that you need peace of heart and resty 
Dannie." 

“To fill my heart wi' peace ye will have to prove to me 
that I'm no responsible fra the death of Jimmy Malone; 
and to give it rest ye will have to prove to me that I'm free 
to marry his wife. Ye can do neither of those things." 

“I can do both," said the priest calmly. “My son, that 
is what I came to do." 

Dannie's face grew whiter and whiter, as the blood re- 
ceded, while his big hands gripped at his sides. 

“Aye, but ye canna!" he cried desperately. “Ye 
canna!" 

“I can," said the priest. “Listen to me! Did Jimmy 
get anything at all said to you ? " 

“He said, ‘Mary,' then he choked on the next wordf 
then he gasped out ‘yours,' and it was over/^ 


THE POT OF GOLD 


247 

‘^Have you any idea what he was trying to tell you?’^ 

^‘Na!’^ answered Dannie. ^^He was mortal sick, and 
half delirious, so I paid little heed. If he lived, he would 
tell me when he was better; if he died, nothing mattered, 
fra I was responsible, and better friend mon never had. 
There was nothing on earth Jimmy would na have done 
for me. He was so big hearted, so generous! My God, 
how I have missed him! How I have missed him!’^ 

‘‘Your faith in Jimmy is strong,^’ ventured the be- 
wildered priest, for he did not see his way. 

Dannie lifted his head. The sunshine was warming him, 
so his thoughts were beginning to clear. 

^‘My faith in Jimmy Malone is so strong,*’ he said, “that 
if I lost it, I never should trust another living mon. He 
had his faults to others, I admit that, but he never had ony 
to me. He was my friend, and above my life I loved him. 
I wad gladly have died to save him.” 

“And yet you say you are responsible for his death!” 

“Let me tell ye!” cried Dannie eagerly, then he began 
on the story the priest wanted to hear from him. As he 
finished Father Michael’s face cleared. 

“What folly!” he said, “that a man of your intelligence 
should torture yourself with the thought of responsibility 
in a case like that. Any one would have claimed the fish 
in those circumstances. Priest that I am, I would have 
had it, even if I fought for it. Any man would! And as 
for what followed, it was bound to come! He was a tor- 
tured man, and a broken one. If he had not lain out that 
night, he would a few nights later. It was not in your 
power to save him. No man can be saved from himself, 


248 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

Dannie. Did what he said make no impression on 
you?’^ 

^‘Enough that I would have killed him with my naked 
hands if he had na taken it back. Of course he had to re- 
tract! If I believed that of Jimmy, after the life we lived 
together, I would curse God and mon, and break fra the 
woods, and live and dee there alone.’’ 

^‘Then what was he trying to tell you when he died.^” 
asked the bewildered priest. 

‘‘To take care of Mary, I judge.” 

“Not to marry her; and take her for your own?” 

Dannie began to tremble. 

“Remember, I talked with him first,” said Father 
Michael, “ and what he confessed to me, he knew was final. 
He died before he could talk to you, but I think it is time 
to tell you what he wanted to say. He — he — ^was trying — 
trying to tell you that there was nothing but love in his 
heart for you. That he did not in any way blame you. 
That — that Mary was yours. That you were free to take 
her. That ” 

“What!” cried Dannie wildly. “Are ye sure? Oh, my 
God!” 

“Perfectly sure!” answered Father Michael. “Jimmy 
knew how long and faithfully you had loved Mary, and she 
had loved you ” 

“Mary had loved me? Carefu’, mon! Are ye sure?” 

“I know,” said Father Michael convincingly. “I give 
you my priestly word, I know; and Jimmy knew, and was 
altogether willing. He loved you deeply, as he could love 
any one, Dannie, and he blamed you for nothing at all. 


THE POT OF GOLD 


249 

The only thing that would have brought Jimmy any com- 
fort in dying was to know that you would end your life 
with Mary, and not hate his memory.” 

“Hate!” cried Dannie. “Hate! Father Michael, if ye 
have come to tell me that Jimmy na held me responsible 
fra his death, and was willing fra me to have Mary, your 
face looks like the face of God to me!” Dannie gripped 
the priest’s hand. “Are ye sure.? Are ye sure, mon?” 
He almost lifted Father Michael from the ground. 

“I tell you, I know! Go and be happy!” 

“Some ither day I will try to thank ye,” said Dannie, 
turning away. “Noo, Fm in a little of a hurry.” He was 
halfway to the gate when he turned back. “Does Mary 
know this?” he asked. 

“She does,” said the priest. “You are one good man, 
Dannie, go and be happy, and may the blessing of God go 
with you.” 

Dannie lifted his hat. 

“And Jimmy, too,” he said, “put Jimmy in. Father 
Michael.” 

“May the peace of God rest the troubled soul of Jimmy 
Malone,” said Father Michael, and not being a Catholic, 
Dannie did not know that from the blessing for which he 
asked. 

He hurried away with the brightness of dawn on his 
lined face, which looked almost boyish under his whitening 
hair. 

Mary Malone was at the window. Turmoil and bitter- 
ness were beginning to burn in her heart again. Maybe 
the priest had not found Dannie. Maybe he was not 


250 AT THE FCX)T OF THE RAINBOW 

coming. Maybe a thousand things. Then he was com- 
ing. Coming straight and sure. Coming across the 
fields; leaping fences at a bound. Coming with such 
speed and force as comes the strong man, fifteen years 
denied. Mary’s heart began to jar, and thump, while 
waves of happiness surged over her. Then she saw that 
look of dawn, of serene delight on the face of the man, so 
she stood aghast. Dannie threw wide the door, and crossed 
her threshold with outstretched arms. 

“Is it true?” he panted. “The thing Father Michael 
told me, is it true? Will ye be mine, Mary Malone? At 
last will you be mine? Oh, my girl, is the beautiful thing 
that the priest told me true?” 

“ The beautiful thing that the priest told him !’* 

Mary Malone swung a chair before her, and stepped 
back. “Wait!” she cried sharply. “There must be some 
mistake. Till me ixactly what F ather Michael told you ? ” 
“He told me that Jimmy na held me responsible fra his 
death. That he loved me when he died. That he was 
willing I should have ye! Oh, Mary, wasna that splendid 
of him. Wasna he a grand mon? Mary, come to me. 
Say that it’s true! Tell me, if ye love me.” 

Mary Malone stared wide-eyed at Dannie, while she 
gasped for breath. 

Dannie came closer. At last he had found his tongue. 
“Fra the love of mercy, if ye are cornin’ to me, come noo, 
Mary,” he begged. “My arms will split if they dinna get 
round ye soon, dear. Jimmy told ye fra me, sixteen years 
ago, Row I loved ye, and he told me when he came back 
how sorry ye were fra me, and he — he almost cried when he 


THE POT OF GOLD 


251 

told me. I never saw a mon feel so. Grand old Jimmy! 
No other mon like himP^ 

Mary drew back in desperation. 

‘‘You see here, Dannie MicnounP^ she screamed. “You 
see here 

“I do,"^ broke in Dannie. “Tm lookin’! All I ever 
saw, or see now, or shall see till I dee is ‘here,’ when ‘here’ 
is ye, Mary Malone. Oh I If a woman ever could under- 
stand what passion means to a mon! If ye knew what I 
have suffered through all these years, you’d end it, Mary 
Malone.” 

Mary gave the chair a shove. “Come here, Dannie,” 
she said. Dannie cleared the space between them. 
Mary set her hands against his breast. “One minute,” 
she panted. “Just one! I have loved you all me life, me 
man. I niver loved any one but you. I niver wanted 
any one but you. I niver hoped for any Hivin better than 
I knew I’d find in your arms. There was a mistake. 
There was an awful mistake, when I married Jimmy. I’m 
not tillin’ you now, and I niver will, but you must realize 
that! Do you understand me.?” 

“Hardly,” breathed Dannie. “Hardly!” 

“Will, you can take your time if you want to think ic 
out, because that’s all I’ll iver till you. There was a hor-^ 
rible mistake. It was you I loved, and wanted to marry. 
Now bend down to me, Dannie Micnoun, because I’m 
going to take your head on me breast and kiss your dear 
face until I’m tired,” said Mary Malone. 

An hour later Father Michael came leisurely down the 
lane, the peace of God upon him. 


252 AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW 

A radiant Mary went to meet him. 

“You didn’t till him!” she cried accusingly. “You 
didn’t till him!” 

The priest laid a hand on her head. 

“Mary, the greatest thing in the whole world is self- 
sacrifice,” he said. “The pot at the foot of the rainbow is 
just now running over with the pure gold of perfect con- 
tentment. But had you and I done such a dreadful thing 
as to destroy the confidence of a good man in his friend, 
your heart never could know such joy as it now knows in 
this sacrifice of yours; and no such blessed, shining light 
could illumine your face. That is what I wanted to see. 
I said to myself as I came along: ‘She will try, but she will 
learn, as I did, that she cannot look in his eyes and un- 
deceive him. And when she becomes reconciled, her face 
will be so good to see.’ And it is. You did not tell him 
either, Mary Malone!” 


THE END 


THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 





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